Scaled Down Scales

...And the Hundred Heroes...

…Capture the Crystal Key…

Relvain Blackaxe the Dragonpinner saw the fleeing slaves pointing upward. Not believing they would fight hard for their Githyanki overlords, she was not surprised they were fleeing.

What she saw next did surprise her: The the Githyanki themselves were fleeing.

They had more to fight for. She was part of the third wave of the attack, but even that wave should not be enough to collapse Garaitha’s Anvil’s defenses.

They, too, pointed upward.

Relvain looked where they pointed.

The admiral’s flagship, the Cev’ren, was making its escape, its sails aflame.

A cheer went up from the Hundred Heroes. Yet she was not cheered.

“Remember the mission!” she cried. “Kada’ne must not be allowed to escape!”

And began running to the dock where their maps had indicated his flagship had been berthed. “That’s where we’ll find Team Admiral,” she told herself. The priest who had been healing her in the fight followed right behind.

When she got there, she found Nox Rhasgar helping the semi-conscious members of Team Admiral onto a Githyanki vessel. She introduced the priest, Sered to the others.

She was able to help with the sails and get the ship moving quickly, but Aurora lost control and their ship spiraled right on past the Cev’ren.

Then grapples shot out from the pirate vessel and latched onto their ship.

It was only then that she realized who had set the sails ablaze: Admiral Kada’ne was standing over the unconscious body of Andrea Ravn.

Admiral Kada’ne looked up from the body of the unconscious Dragonborn. “No!” he shouted, as his minions fired their grapples into the scout ship spiralling past them out of control. “Pirates will be pirates,” he told himself as his men leaped onto the grappled ship.

Nox Rhasgar knew they had to drive the Minions from their vessel. But he saw an opportunity to hit even more before they had time to come across. Quite a few of them had gathered near the forecastle of the admiral’s flagship.

So he hit them with an Ignition burst before they got their chance to board. They had nowhere to run, so they jumped onto two of the Astral Whitewings. The overburdened reptiles dropped suddenly and flew back to the shipyard.

“That should cut their shrieking.”

She and Delis concentrated on the other Minions as the admiral came across to their vessel and was engaged by Relvain. Finally the only minions who remained were the Psychic Archers.

And one Whitewing with a couple of minions on its back.

Its Stunning Shrieks were even worse than the Psychic Shots from the archers, so Nox concentrated his attacks on the flying reptile. Eventually, he was able to drive it back to the battle below.

Delis the Unselie was concentrating on the Psychic Archers which had so bedeviled them on the docks. But now they had their admiral to protect them. Kada’ne would point at them just as she got them in her sights and banish them — temporarily — to another dimension.

Sered the Skywalker got the message: Relvain wanted him to go over to the other ship, to prevent the admiral from using his flurries to bounce back and forth between them.

He was pretty sure the dwarf didn’t know the advantages of sticking close to a Priest of Pelor, Going over to the other ship was easy. And back, if necessary.

He strolled on over to the other vessel. Walking on air.

“That’s why they call me Skywalker,” he told Delis who was standing open-mouthed on the other side.

The admiral did not make it easy for them. Another flurry of blades — this one centered on Relvain — left her in need of healing.

They were all in need of healing. And the only mass heal Sered could do required them to group up. Close together. Where the admiral’s Flurry of Blades could be used on all of them.

The Flurry of Blades could be used for another purpose: Kada’ne used it on Relvain, nearly killing her; when the flurry got him clear of Relvain, he used a Telekinetic leap to cross back to his flagship and engage Sered.

“Oh, well,” he thought. “Time for the Aura of Astral Radiance.”

His body began to glow with swirls of divine radiance darting ever further from his body until the area within 15 feet was granting both protection for his allies and destruction for the enemies of Pelor.

“Not quite a mass heal,” he shouted. “But, if you’re bloodied stay within the aura and it will heal you!”

He didn’t tell them they would also do more damage to their enemies.

Protected by the aura, Relvain was able to get between the admiral and Sered. That gave them all they needed to bring down the coward. The entire area between the forecastle and the sterncastle was dangerous to Kada’ne now. Whenever he entered that main deck of his own flagship, the divine radiance attached him and protected the enhanced Team Admiral.

When they searched the admiral’s body, they found the crystal key Haryssus and Bejam believe is crucial to taking control of the Sovereign Gate.

When they flew both ships back to Garaitha’s Anvil, they found a surprise: The Hundred Heroes, backed by the slaves who revolted against the Githyanki, had routed the remaining slavers.

Megan Swiftblade told them how it happened. “When the Githyanki saw their admiral fleeing the grabbed the remaining ships and fled as well.”

It made sense to Sered. “So they were not willing to fight and die for leaders who would not stand with them?”

“The few left behind either died bravely, scurried to hidey holes in the shipyard, or surrendered to the Hundred Heroes,” she told him. “We are still ferreting out the last of the hiders. With the help of the ex-slaves, who know the place better than we do.”

...To Help Nox Rhasgar...

…In a Desperate Chase…

“Not hard to keep her alive,” he thought. “Relvain attracts all the attacks and then blocks them. Either that, or they glance off her armor.”

When the blows did land Sered easily healed her. He didn’t even have to exhaust his own health to do so.

The a cry went up among their enemies. The Githyanki were all pointing upward — which in the Anvil meant toward the great portal which occupied the center of the demi-plane. Their cries were not happy. The ship they watched was damaged and lurching upward, almost out of control.

“Kada’ne! Kada’ne!” they shouted, among much else. As they began to flee — some leaping on other craft to get away; others running to hide in the storerooms of the shipyard itself — Relvain came over to explain.

When Sered told him that was good, that no more heroes need suffer and die, the Dwarven Shieldmaiden disagreed.

“Remember the mission! We are trying to stop the admiral to get the Crystal Key he carries.”

Then she took off running.

Sered could think of nothing else to do but run after her. She seemed to know where she was going.

That turned out to a ship, at dock. A small ship. Some kind of scouting ship for the Githyanki navy.

“Pirates,” Sered told himself. “Pirates would need a fast scouting ship to find their targets in the Astral Sea.”

A lone Dragonborn was helping other adventurers onto the ship.

“The admiral is getting away!” Relvain shouted to the Dragonborn.

“I know,” the Dragonborn replied. “We have to chase him down. His ship is badly damaged. And Andrea Ravn is on it, trying to damage it further.”

“Damage it further?!”

“Last I saw her, she was using her breath on the sails. I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She says she has the Blood of Io. Says we all have it. All us Dragonborn, anyway.”

Along with an Elven Ranger they introduced as Delis, they helped the others onto the ship.

They unhooked the lines holding the ship to the dock and it lurched upward.

“Not as awkwardly as the admiral’s flagship,” he admitted. "But we’re going to have to learn fly this thing, if we’re going to catch Kada’ne before he reaches the portal.

Andrea Ravn continued her game of cat-and-mouse. She knew her allies were shooting at the admiral’s flagship. Some of their blasts were hitting. But she had no way of letting them know how well she was doing.

Nox Rhasgar agreed with Sered’s assessment. Controlling the scout ship — known as the Iliyoru — would be difficult. Seeing the sails flapping loose in the wind, he sent Relvain aloft to secure the sails.

“I may not know how to sail this craft,” Relvain shouted from the mast. “But I can surely pull on a rope!” She did just that and the mainsail was no longer flapping.

The scout ship pitched under Nox’s feet as Aurora tried to bring her under control, swinging wide over the shipyard below. He could see some Githyanki and Coalition forces still locked in combat, neither side giving ground in the ongoing assault.

Then suddenly, a group of white shapes peeled away from a skirmish with the Coalition’s griffon riders. At first, Nox thought they were running.

Eight white reptilian creatures winged their way up and toward Iliyoru with a shriek, their
Githyanki riders spurring them on. He jumped into one of Spell Turrets and cast one of his Elemental Bolts at one of the Astral Whitewings, which were now assaulting their vessel.

The creature was hurt, which frightened its rider. Nox could now see the reptilian creatures — he wouldn’t call them dragons unless he saw their breath weapons — were ridden by Githyanki.

“Minions, by the look of the way that one is running,” he told the others who took up positions in the Force Ballistas to blast at the other Whitewings and at the admiral’s ship as well.

Aurora was having difficulty figuring out the arcane secrets of the Helm which controlled the ship. By watching the Cev’ren’s erratic flight, Nox guessed Andrea was having some success disabling more sails on the ship ahead of them.

“We might even be gaining ground!” he shouted.

Then Relvain fell to the deck as she tried to swing to the other mast. Aurora gave up on the Arcana and simply grabbed ahold of the wheel and used it to swing their ship back and forth, to prevent the attacks from above from hitting them.

Sered missed twice with the Force Ballista, and Aurora continued working the wheel with great effect.

“I think she’s even learning to speed us up by using the wind,” Nox told himself. An explosion on the admiral’s flagship told him Andrea was having some success. “And Relvain’s great strength has got the rest of the sails under control.”

“Little more we can do with the sails and the Helm,” Aurora told him. “I’m going to try figuring out the arcane controls again.”

Sered fired an Astral Seal at the flagship.

“That will make it easier for me to hit it.”

But whatever Aurora was trying, it failed. The Iliyoru went into an out-of-control spiral which brought it into range of the Cev’ren’s grapples.

...When the Admiral...

…Is Frightened into a Desperate Run

She also decided to trap the admiral by further crippling his flagship, which was still under repair. Without further explanation, she leaped into the air, flew past a Warmaster who wounded her badly, jumped onto the side of the Cev’ren, and set one of its sail aflame.

Nox could see the terrified look on the admiral’s face. He turned to tell Delis what had happened. His words were drowned out by three cracks of lightning.

Before Nox could ask himself whether Kada’ne’s response would be fight or flight, he got his answer: When he looked back, the admiral’s ship was already floundering its way upward.

Although it was rising quickly, he could tell it was not flying as fast as it might.

“Not with one of its sails in flames and its repairs still incomplete.” But it was rising…

…rising toward the portal at the center of Garaitha’s Anvil.

The crew of the other ship was looking uneasily toward their fleeing leader. Nox could tell they knew they were being abandoned to allow Kada’ne’s getaway. So he decided to attack.

They were all perched atop a higher shelf of the shipyard — up where both ships had been berthed. Perched behind a makeshift barricade of supplies and ship-repair parts. The shelf itself protected them from Nox’s sorcery.

So he climbed one of the strange ladders the shipyard workers used to get from one level to another.

And came under withering fire from the Githyanki behind the barricades as soon as he got to their level.

Andrea Ravn knew what she wanted to do: Disable the Kada’ne’s flagship before it was repaired and make a run for it.

Grasping the edge of the gunwale and heaving upward, she saw the nearest sail, blasting it with her Dragonbreath. The Blood of Io let transform the lightning of her breath weapon into fire. The sail erupted in flame.

From her vantage clinging to the rail, she could look directly into Admiral Kada’ne’s eyes. And saw fear … pure unadulterated fear.

He began shouting orders to his crew in Deep Speech. Andrea could not understand the language, but she could tell the crew was confused, somehow conflicted between the their fear of the admiral and their unwillingness to carry out whatever order he was giving them.

Then one of the Blademasters in the crew stepped forward — apparently willing to do Kada’ne’s bidding. He pointed at the admiral, drew his hand into a fist, and threw the fist over the side.

Then Andrea knew what the admiral was ordering. The admiral soared over the gunwale. She just didn’t understand why. She was sure Kada’ne — like most Githyanki of his rank — could telekinetic leap off the ship if he wanted to run away. Why did he need his crew to throw him overboard. From the looks on the other crewmen, she could tell they were equally baffled. Even the Blademaster seemed to be puzzled.

Lightning burst from the admiral’s outstretched palms. His Soulstorm Strike blasted the chains which held the Cev’ren to the dock — surpassing the damage Andrea could accomplish with her Lightning Breath and turning the chains into molten metal. Then he used his own Telekinetic Leap to fly back to the deck of the ship…

… just as the ship lurched upward, into the sky …

…toward the seething portal at the center of Garaitha’s Anvil.

That was when Andrea realized what the admiral was doing: He was running, like the coward he always was.

But this time the coward was running on a crippled ship … with its sails in flames.

And she was clinging to the gunwales of that same ship. She could jump off and rejoin her party. Or she could stay on the flagship and try to stay alive and damage it further. “That would be quite a game of cat-and-mouse,” she thought. “Only who would be the cat? And who would be the mouse?”

“The Dragonborn is not used to fighting without an armored wall in front of him. He rushed right in, never knowing how dangerous that is for a Sorcerer.”

The Psychic Archers from the Iliyoru dazed Nox with their Psychic Shot arrows and had him bloodied in seconds. Delis concentrated her fire on the archers even as the Corsair Cutters moved in to finish the job.

And now the archers were dazing Delis as well.

Nox used a desperate teleport to drop back and heal himself while they finished off the minions. None of whom looked very willing to fight to the death for a leader who had already escaped and left them to fight and die.

They still had to deal with the Warmaster of the Iliyoru. He took Nox right to the brink of death.

But Delis knew she could out-maneuver the Githyanki, even if he was able to take Nox out of the fight. Nox might die, but the Warmaster was going down as well.

The Warmaster seemed to realize this about the same time Delis did. He made a run for his ship, making it back to the deck, trying to release its chains and escape with his admiral.

Delis caught up with him first, then the wounded Nox.

They finished him off before he had a chance to release the Iliyoru. And Delis knew what would come next: a chase — if they could figure out how to fly the ship — and a boarding action — if they could figure out how to fight one of the most powerful Githyanki they had ever faced.

...Andrea Decides...

…To Stop the Admiral’s Flagship.

“We all have the Blood of Io within us,” she told him. “Some of us — like Garen, and now me — just come to realize it more fully.”

She unfolded her wings. Once vestigial, they now were large and strong enough for her to fly short distances.

She told them she was worried. the admiral was trying to get his flagship into condition to flee. And they had no one who knew how to fly the other ship or how to fire its weapons.

She assumed that, if they could set his sails afire, the admiral would have to give up his chance to run.

And they needed to kill or capture the admiral…to get the key he carried.

That gave Andrea something to do with her wings.

She got a running start and leaped into the air. She flew over the first barricade before her wings began to tire.

Relvain the Dragonpinner took up the chant as the third wave prepared to go through the Portals. “A hundred as a thousand. A hundred as a thousand!”

Nox Rhasgar watched in amazement as Andrea flew at the largest of the Githyanki. It drew its silver sword and prepared for her attack.

Andrea landed on the barrel it was hiding behind.

Landed hard, because her wings were tired. The Githyanki drew back to defend himself…

…from an attack that never came. Andrea launched herself once again into the air above him. He swung wildly and his silver sword cut her badly. But she flew over him and landed well behind the line of defenders.

She taunted the Githyanki, but the admiral ordered them to stand fast.

For protection, he ordered the last crewmen off a nearby boat and demanded they stop Andrea. Then he went back to the repair of his own flagship….

…Well, to order the repair. He was yelling at dockworkers as well as the crew of his ship, which was obviously not yet ready to fly.

The admiral was also yelling at the few crewmen who still remained on the other ship. Nox thought he was ordering them to attack Andrea and protect him from the crazed Dragonborn Warlord.

Andrea did not wait for them to attack her. She ran toward the flagship and threw herself one more time into the air. This time she flew to the side of the admiral’s ship and grabbed ahold of some nets hanging over the side just as her wings gave out.

Nox knew what she planned to do next. He saw her drawing in her breath.

She was about to breathe fire and try to set the sails of the warship aflame.

...Through the Giants...

…To Link Up…

Delis saw the Eldritch Giant was now working on the control panel. She was sure it was one of the Fire Giants.

Even though its attention was on its task, it still heard sneaking around in the piles of equipment.

“Better hearing than a bunch of serfs used to toiling at the forges,” she admitted.

Luring the Giants back to the corridor where she could fight them one at a time, she started picking them off one at a time. The Fire Giant Serfs ran for it the first time she hit each of them with one of her arrows.

Then she came to one which was tougher — a Fire Giant Forgemaster.

Krasire made his way back to the Swiftriders. Megan needed to be told they had tried to find a way to get the team going after Admiral Kada’ne. But some giants were between them and the team.

It took the Eldritch Giant longer than Nox Rhasgar expected to bring down the force gates. But he was definitely better at it than the Fire Giants.

Now they were fighting both — Fire Giants and the Eldritch Giant.

He was surprised at how quickly the Fire Giants were defeated. The Serfs ran away at the first opportunity. The Forgemaster broke out of the Blood-Shadow trap Shadowfox penned him in, but he died quickly after that.

“Must not have any protection from my fire.”

Aurora didn’t really want to fight the Giants. When they broke through the force gates, however, she didn’t see an alternative. “I don’t think we can assault the barricades with Giants at our heels.”

Trinity Shadowfox was disappointed the Blood Shadows were unable to pen the Fire Giant, but he was glad it went down.

The Eldtritch Giant was a different story. It kept casting enormous fields of undulating magic.

As soon as he pulled it out of the center — or Aurora whipped it out with her Thorn Whips — it could call it back into itself and send it out as a blast. They were all taking a lot of damage from that.

...Goes in Behind Team Admiral...

…With Delis Erinthal and Krasire…

…trying to maintain contact and Megan Swiftblade’s Freeriders trying to make sure they can all get out. And Relvain the Dragonpinner waiting for the third wave … the main assault.

Krasire was somewhat satified that Aurora had incorporated some of his ideas into the plan they eventually settled on.

Team Admiral were going in first. Megan Swiftblade and her Freeriders were going in on the second wave — which was dubbed the “Stealth Wave.” He and Delis Erinthal would go with Megan and try to help her maintain contact with Aurora’s Team Admiral. The third wave was being called the “Main Assault” — led by The Dragonpinner herself — but everybody knew it was really a feint to draw attention from Team Admiral.

He and Delis were taking a lot of explosives in with them — all they could fit in his Bag of Holding.

When they got to the scaffolding Team Admiral planned to use as their entry point, they found evidence of a fight there. Dead Githyanki all over.

“Looks like their cover was not maintained.”

Privately, Krasire hoped they had just run into a routine patrol.

They placed barrels of explosives a key points on the scaffolds ready to blow if they needed to cover a hasty retreat. That was looking more likely if Team Admiral’s cover was blown.

They climbed the rickety structure and went through the hole in the wall. They found a small storage room. Then a hallway.

At the close end of the hall was a room with two Eldritch Giants bringing in supplies: wood and ingots mostly. At the other end of the hall, they found a forge — sized for giants.

He heard shouting behind him. Before he had a chance to hide, Delis was behind a forge furnace and the Eldritch Giants had spotted him.

The Dragonpinner sat sharpening her axe. The first two waves were just not her style. “I’m not built for stealth,” she said as she prepared for the main attack on the shipyard.

Delis Erinthal had to change her tactics once Krasire disappeared … seemingly shattered into a cloud of crystals.

The Eldritch Giants had spotted Krasire right away. Delis hid as soon as she heard the Giants shouting at each other. She wasn’t surprised they had heard Krasire. He wasn’t very stealthy.

“Stealthy for a rock, I guess.” But not as stealthy as an The Huntress of Winter’s Eye.

She had stayed out of sight while Krasire was attacked by the two Giants. Then he was shattered into a thousand crystals. One of the Giants left.

She decided she should work her way back to Megan without letting the Giants spot her. But the remaining eldritch creature was able to spot her before she got out and she had to start fighting it.

The room, with its giant forges and enormous anvils, proved the perfect battleground for her run-and-shoot tactics, allowing her to hide most of the time. The Giant had no such advantage and Delis found herself humming the tune to “Giants Don’t Sneak.”

Even before Krasire came back — “How did he do that?” — she was pretty sure she could kill the big creature and continue their mission without him. Once he got back they finished it off fairly quickly.

She scouted ahead and found the other Eidritch Giant had joined some Fire Giants who were trying to get through a magickal force door.

Beyond, she could see Nox trying to jam the door against their efforts.

...Fail to Prevent...

…Team Admiral…

…from making it to the docks.

Shade opened the door using the Thief’s Tools which Andrea loaned her. They peeked inside and saw two Fire Giants carrying metal balls from a room at the end of the hall toward an opening in the other side of the hall.

Loud crashing noises emanated from another room at their end of the hall.

She was able to sneak over and see what was making the noise: Two Arcane Giants — who looked a lot like the Eldritch Giants they fought back at the Sovereign Gate — were using gates near the ceiling to bring in supplies for the shipyard.

“Ingots of metal…and heavy wooden beams,” she observed. “I would not like to fight in there where they could drop that stuff on my head.”

At the other end of the hall she discovered a foundery. Elemental and Fire Giants were directing their minions at the forges. So she decided to follow the two Giants they had seen earlier.

The room on the other side was stacked with war materials…and it looked to her like some of it had already been shipped out. Beyond that she could see shimmering force gates and a patrol beyond.

“They must have let the Fire Giants through to the docks.”

She went back to report her findings to the others.

Nox Rhasgar decided to use his Arcana to figure out the panel beside to the Force Gates.

Andrea Ravn agreed they should ignore the dangerous rooms between them and the docks and go straight for the Force Gates.

“Our mission is to get to the admiral before he knows he’s being attacked,” she told them. “The sooner we can get through these guys the sooner we get to the admiral. If we can do that before the Fire Giants and Eldritch Giants know we are here, we might not even have to fight them at all.”

Sneaking as best each could, they made their way to the storage room. Hiding behind some wire-frame boxes — well, Shadowfox hid on top — they sent Nox forward to see if he could open the Force Gates.

She was pretty sure the guards on the other side could not see the Sorceror. The forces of the gates made the air all wobbly if you tried to look through them. Nox made himself as hard to see as possible by sticking close to the wall as worked on the panel.

Andrea was positive they would see him once the gates were down.

Sure enough.

When the gates disappeared, the guards formed up and attacked the Sorceror. Andrea knew he would expect them to rush to his aid. But she had another idea.

“Follow me,” she told the others. She led them around to another Force Gate — which had also been opened by Nox. Then, they were able to attack the guards in the rear as they attacked Nox.

The Sorceror did not wait around to be trapped as he had in the last battle.

This time he telelported out of the fray and joined them in their attack from the other side.

By the time Nox got around to back them up, they were already putting the Giant Fomorian Guards and some of their Githyanki friends on the run.

“Minions,” she snorted, even though two of the Githyanki stayed to fight. Alarms were going up all over and soon more waves of minions were coming at them as fast as they could put them on the run.

She knew they had to stop the waves from continuing, so she told Nox to see if he could re-close the Force Gates.

“And see if you can jam the mechanism. We’re gonna need enough time to fight our way to Admiral Kada’ne’s ship.”

Nox Rhasgar decided to use his Athletics to complete the first part of the effort to jam the Force Gates shut and stop the waves of Minions. “Everybody always forgets how strong Sorcerors are,” With brute force, he unlocked the inhibitors that controlled the flow of arcane power to the gates. Once that was done, however, his bulging forearms could do no more. “Unlocked is unlocked,” he told himself. “Maybe I can do the rest with Arcana.”

Nox tapped into the magic within one of the gates, gaining control of its flow.

Aurora saw how Nox was working the magic at one gate, so she went to the other and did the same thing to control its flow. "Once it’s controlled, though, there nothing more to do with our Arcana. We can turn them on, but it’s going to take some Thievery to jam the controls into the on position and prevent the re-inforcements on the other side from just re-opening them and hitting us in the rear.

Earlier she had seen the Assassin pick a lock, so she called him over to the panel.

“See if you can override part of the mechanism controlling the gates, Shadowfox,” she suggested.

Once the Assassin got the Force Gates back up, she saw it was just in time: The next wave of minions were not minions at all, but some of the Fire Giants they had seen earlier.

They finished off the Githyanki and their Fomorian minions and did a quick search of the bodies.

All they found were a couple of cameos…depicting Emperor Zetch’r’r.

“At least they might be worth some money,” she thought, pocketing one.

...on the Docks of Garaitha...

…as the Infiltration Team Gets Spotted.

Aurora was glad the ritualists had been able to scry the docks at Garaitha’s Anvil. The whole area was under a Forbiddance ritual to prevent scrying. The Wizards from Nefelus told her the power of the Sovereign Gate enabled them to find The Cev’ren in the vast shipyard in spite of these Forbiddance protections.

They showed her a map. Unfortunately, none of the Portals they had so far been able to find were in the immediate location of the admiral’s flagship — The Cev’ren — but a couple were nearby.

Her plan: To sneak in with the assassin’s guild party and try to capture or kill Admiral Kada’ne to get his crystal key; then, they would be followed five minutes later by wave of stealthy adventurers, each trying to penetrate from a different gate; finally, ten minutes after that, the largest wave with dozens of fighters would attack openly in as many locations as possible.

“Hopefully, the later waves will distract them from the main mission,” she told the Hundred Heroes gathered outside the Fane of Chaniir. “Capturing the crystal key.”

They arranged for a special signal when they had found the key to let the Hundred Heroes know they could withdraw.

“Don’t press your fight so hard you will not be able to break off when we find the key,” she warned them.

Across the bluffs and trails surrounding the fane, she saw the mages of the Coalition scribing dozens of planar portals, causing the fading twilight to blaze with eldritch light.

Spread out before them, the greatest heroes of the mortal realm stood in expectation of the battle to come. Most are on foot, a score or more mounted on steeds still skittish from having made the transit through portals from their own lands.

One force of rangers from the desert lands south of Elsir Vale make a last check of the tack on a flight of griffons.

No one spoke.

At Aurora’s signal, Bejam and his mages activate the planar portal in front of her, and a flare of white light cut through the darkness. Within that light, hazy images of the shipyard flare to life — windowless stone buildings, the open spaces between them thronging with Githyanki and giants.

Shadowfox introduced her to the crowd and she got them worked up before Nox made his speech.

Around her, the Hundred were ready, waiting to move at their word.

Nox made his speech: short but powerful:

“Using the advantage of our surprise, we will hit them — one hundred as a thousand.”
— the final words of Nox Rhasgar’s
speech to the Hundred Heroes

“Hundred as a thousand! Hundred as a thousand!”

Shade was impressed by the way the crowd reacted to Nox’s words. Picking up on them immediately, they began chanting the words louder and louder as Team Admiral stepped through the gate in front of them.

A Githyanki patrol spotted Nox almost as soon as they began to work their way toward their goal: a storeroom they hoped would lead them to the admiral’s ship.

“I guess we’ll have to fight our way in,” she told the others.

The fight did not go well for them. Nox got surrounded — not the sort of position the Sorceror was used to fighting from. Shade herself went down and had to play possum while Aurora healed them.

But she was not a true healer.

“Just a Druid with some good healing spells,” she told himself. The Druid was also summoning animals — firebirds and wolves mostly — to help with the fight.

Then she suddenly realized their mission was not to kill this Githyanki patrol, but to get past them.

In a flash she Ghost-on-the-Rooftopped up the construction equipment and made it through the hole in the wall to the door to the storage room.

“Alas, it is locked.”

She tried to pick the lock, but could not open it.

Looking back down at the rest of the kidnap-the-admiral team, she saw they were in desperate straights.

Nox went down — it was the first time Shade had ever seen him taken out of a fight. Aurora stabilized him, but Shade had to Ghost-on-the-Rooftops back down to pull a potion from the Sorceror’s belt and revive him.

That gave them just enough to finish off the patrol.

“I guess killing them works, too,” she said. “And this way they cannot get help.”

They searched the bodies, but found nothing beyond the usual silver weapons carried by all Githyanki. They knew they had to move on if they were going to be able to use the next wave as a distraction.

...Is a Time for...

Krasire…

In her dream she had finally reached Queen Ileosa and returned her stolen broach. The queen had offered her a job, a job in the Queens Guard. Somehow Andrea knew Nox had gotten a job there, too. Even though he was not in the dream this time.

“Had to kill the darn imps by myself.” She knew she was lying to herself. The House Drakes in the dream city of Korvosa had helped her finish them off. “But the queen didn’t seem so bad. Maybe the rumors aren’t true. The king’s line has always been cursed.”

She found a line at the World Gate. The mages of Nefelus were apparently putting Whitefire Marks on as many of the heroes who were gathering as possible. The cat-girl Druid in front of him was not impressed by the Hundred Heroes.

“Look like wandering mercenaries to me,” she said surveying the crowd.

When they got through the World Gate to the Sovereign Gate, Andrea saw it was well-guarded. She recognized one of the guards — a Freerider named Ragnum Dourstone. Ragnum told them the Githyanki were still trying to use the portals.

Andrea wondered aloud how long it would take for Admiral Kada’ne to catch on.

“We questioned one moving alone, said he was from Utargarth, Utargarath, something like that. Someone named Kada’ne sent him to the fane to see what’s up with the team supposed to be holding it. It’s a safe bet there’ll be more like him coming through soon enough.”

Andrea had good idea what Utargarath was: “Utargaraith is the name of the interplanar shipyards,” she told the Druid, “where the Githyanki build and repair their fleets of astral craft and airships — Garaitha’s Anvil, as it is most commonly translated.”

They found Krasire and took him down the long stairs. Beyond the astral vortex, the exhausted Bejam stood with Haryssus, the works of the eldritch giant’s library spread across the tables.

“We have gained a valuable ally in our fight against the Githyanki,” Bejam said, nodding to the giant. “I have learned much of the operation of this place, but I fear that it spells our doom all the same.”

Haryssus told them the only way to control the Sovereign Gate was to use one the four crystal keys to the plinth at the top of the ivory stairs.

Queen Vlaakith held one, but her key was said to be lost when
she was destroyed.

Zetch’r’r holds one, taken from one of Vlaakith’s captains slain when the new emperor came to power.

Kada’ne, admiral of the Githyanki fleet, holds one.

Do’kan, general and master of the Githyanki ground forces, holds the third.

Remembering what Ragnum Dourstone had said about the admiral, she suggested that was the key they should after.

Bejam told them he had sent word to the Coalition leadership, requesting that they come to the fane for a war council that can decide the Coalition’s course of action.

When they got back to the Chaniri’s cave, however, not all members of the Coalition leadership had made the journey. In particular, Eoffram Troyas remained behind in Brindol to help deal with a Hobgoblin uprising.

“I hope it’s the real thing this time,” Andrea thought. The last time the representative of Brindol had been concerned about Hobgoblins, it was a ruse intended to win votes for the leadership of the Council.

Amyria is here, as are other Coalition members. Andrea recognized Fariex, even though he was in human form.

The cautious Quelenna Entromiel was there as well, potentially undercutting any hope Andrea had of inspiring the Coalition into a quick response to the Githyanki threat.

The war council took place in an abandoned library in the fane. Megan Swiftblade and a dozen other heroes of the Coalition are on guard, but the bulk of those who have come to defend the fane are outside, getting their Whitefire Marks, in line at the World Gate, or in the Well of Worlds, keeping watch against a Githyanki attack.

Bejam tried to convince the Coalition leaders of the danger posed by the extension of the Sovereign Gate’s powers to the World Gates. Andrea told them their walls would be no use against an enemy who could teleport vast armies past their gates.

But Quelenna Entromiel took the lead arguing for caution.

“We are far from our homes and families — the places and people we are bound to defend. This place, these planar sites you speak of are meaningless targets. A majority of our many lands’ heroes are here now to defend these places, and for what?

“This is a fight we cannot win, and as such, it is a fight we cannot consider. Waiting here for eventual attack or, worse, seeking out the Githyanki stretches our already over-extended resources past the breaking point. Instead, we must ask what we might do to hinder the Githyanki. Slow down their plots to give us time to plan a proper defense of
our homelands.”
— Quelenna’s speech to the Council
at the Fane of Chaniir

He called on all his years of experience as one of the secret leaders of Waterdeep. The Lords of Waterdeep did not rule openly. They did not make public speeches like this one.

That did not mean they didn’t have to be persuasive. They had to convince people individually.

“That gives me a lot of experience in convincing other leaders,” he thought. Leaders like the members of the Council.

He could tell his speech had not swayed Quellena. But he was surprised when the vote went against them.

“Not that she could have been convinced.” he thought. “Her mind was made up long ago. I though I could convince the others.”

But Megan Swiftblade was a different story. She seemed moved almost to tears by his words.

“The Coalition’s so-called leaders don’t know what they’re saying,” she snorted. "Bankers and merchant lords, the lot of them. If you say we need to strike this Garaitha’s Anvil, the Freeriders are with you. But there’s nearly a hundred of us — the Freeriders and the other adventurers who have answered your call — here all told, come together to show our strength. With you leading, I promise the rest will follow.”
— Megan Swiftblade’s reply
to Quelenna after the vote

Cain Shadowfox was frustrated. They had a rough map of the docks at Garaitha’s Anvil. But everyone seemed intent on promoting their own plans for how to attack it. They needed to strike hard and fast. But the admiral was known for his caution. Some even called it cowardice. As soon as he knew they were coming for him, they were sure he would flee.

Bejam told him, “The Garaitha docks are set with two score permanent portals.”

He knew it could not be that easy. “Those sigil sequences are one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Githyanki empire,” he pointed out.

“Good,” he told the wizard. “We can teleport right to the admiral’s flagship.”

“We don’t know for sure where the flagship is located,” Bejam told him. “Maybe we can scrye the location.”

“Once again they must have powerful protections against scrying,” Andrea pointed out.

“Yes,” the wizard admitted. “But the power of the Sovereign Gate might be used to overcome those protections.”

As leaders of the Hundred Heroes, Cain thought they could come up with a plan but everybody seemed to be pushing their own ideas, rather than working together.

He thought they should send in the sneakiest of the heroes — maybe even the Freeriders themselves — to infiltrate the shipyards. A distraction was suggested. Andrea had her own ideas about the attack.

“What do you think?”
— Amyria to Aurora
when planning reached an impasse

“Well,” Aurora said, “I think we should lead the attempt to capture the admiral. If we go in first, we will be less likely to spook him into fleeing.”

“What of the others?”

“They can attack once we have had a chance to infiltrate and grab Admiral Kada’ne,” she explained. “They must attack with full force, even if we do not believe they will take the shipyards and hold them.”

Amyria seemed impressed with her ideas. “Everybody will need to be ready to retreat with the admiral once you capture. The Hundred Heroes will have to avoid committing to an all-out attack if they are going to be ready to escape when the time comes.”

She suggested they have a signal to let everyone know they had captured Admiral Kada’ne.

Then Amyria turned to Nox and asked him what he thought of the plan.

“Sounds like a good one,” the Sorceror told them. “If we can get in fast enough, we may be able to catch them before he turns tail and runs.”

They headed through the World Gate to tell the Nefelese ritualists what they needed from their scrying rituals.

...and Learns Much...

…About her Powers

Nox Rhasgar remembered the giant had warned them to go back. Not so much a threat, he thought, as a warning.

Andrea was easily convinced. And, when the Warlord told Relvain she could see magickal shackles on the hands and feet of the Astral Giant, the Dragonpinner decided to go along and concentrate on the Githyanki Shade which had appeared before them. This one looked stronger than the ones they fought back in the fane and was armed with two bastard swords.

But the real problem was the slippery, wet surface of the ivory bridge. Nox was able to climb back up the stairs to where it was dry. He could still hit the ghost from there. No matter where it went.

But the others found it harder. Relvain slipped and fell into the seething vortex of magic. She had a hard time even climbing out.

Andrea had an easier time getting out, but she slipped back in repeatedly.

The Dreamer found herself once again in a swamp looking for a Giant Centipede. She knew she had to kill it to create the Undead Centipede which would one day be known as Nightshade. Even though she was good at stealth, it didn’t seem like there was much to sneak up on in this swamp. She decided to try tracking the creatures. She wasn’t much good at tracking, but it proved easy. “Giant Centipedes leave very distinctive footprints.” When she found one, however, it bit her…

“Back in the secret room at the Fane of Chaniir,” she told herself. But this time she was not wrapped in chains. “Lots of noise outside.”

So she sneaked out and found the fane was bustling with activity. The Alliance was moving in. A Wizard from Nefelus named Bejam filled her in. The fane was cleared — even the Chaniiri they had rescued were gone.

Bejam introduced her to a group of Wizards experimenting on the bodies of the Painbringers they had killed. They were able to transfer some of the magic in the Whitefire Marks — strange tatoos that glowed with white radiant light — to her forearm. They told him the tatoos would enable her to go through a powerful gate to join the strike force that was reconning some place of power they Githyanki were using.

When the ritualists in the next room sent her through, she found lots of dead Githyanki.

“I see Nox and the others have been through here. Lots of scorch marks on these corpses.”

She found a pool of magickal water and a room with two dead giants, then a room with nothing but four mirrors and a stairway leading down.

“Ivory stairs, all carved from a single piece of ivory.” Grim was not sure she wanted to meet the creature whose horn produced such a stairway. At least 300 feet long, she realized by the time she heard the sounds of fighting below.

When she got to the bottom, the fight was not going well. She and Nox were able to damage the powerful ghost they were fighting. When she used her Executioner’s Noose to slide the creature into the maelstrom of magic, it simply used its telekinetic powers to leap to one of the pillars in the vortex.

There Relvain and Andrea had a hard time getting to it. So Grim leapt out to the pillars herself like a Ghost on the Rooftops. She was able to pursue it from pillar to pillar, eventually forcing it back to the bridge.

The ghost returned to its pillars as soon as it could, leaving Relvain once more out of the fight.

“You’re doing something that none of the rest of us can do,” the frustrated Dwarf told her. “You’re herding it.”

Then Andrea felling unconscious. and Grim knew they were really in trouble.

Relvain the Dragonpinner was frustrated. She could see they were close to losing the fight. And she could not get to the ghostly Githyanki as long as he stayed out on the pillars. Just when Shadowfox had finally learned to herd it off them, Andrea went down. “Looks like our healer is dying.”

Andrea Ravn regained consciousness to find herself looking up at Nox. The Sorceror had just poured a potion down her throat.

“Not the Potion of Regeneration I gave him,” she thought, tasting it on her lips. “It must have been one of the Potions of Vitality we found.”

She knew their only chance was if she could keep herself alive. So she healed herself and tried a Defensive Rally to pep up the rest of the party.

“Can’t afford to lose our only healer,” she told them.

Then Trinity Shadowfox brought out a power she had never seen her use before: Blood Shadows. Hiding from the bloodied Shade, she was able to teleport to its pillar and attack it with her Talenta Sharash.

Andrea watched as the blood from the attack drained to the ground and spread out across the creature’s very shadow. The Assassin was about to spill more blood all around the top of that pillar when she noticed a devious grin appear on Shadowfox’s face.

Shaking the scythe-like weapon — first on the next pillar, then on the one behind, and finally at the bridge itself — Shadowfox created three more Blood Shadows. Now, wherever it went it would find a shadow made of its own blood granting anyone who attacked it combat advantage.

When the ghost fled those pillars, Trinity followed it and forced it back onto the ivory bridge, where they were all able to combine their attacks and kill it.

“Now, if she could just learn to combine those Blood Shadows with the herding tactics she uses when she uses the Talenta Sharash as an Executioner’s Noose,” Andrea thought. “She could be really effective.”

...(or Blow Down) a Barrier...

…and Find a Giant…

“He kills the most enemies, he draws the most fire, and his defenses are weaker than ours,” she told Andrea.

But Nox was already working on the wards blocking a stairway he had found in the room he peeked into. She saw he was immediately able to destabilize the wards by exploiting the arcane energies surging around the stairs.

Relvain tried to lift the metal bars blocking their way, but only succeeded in making them harder to stand on. Andrea told her that the Dragonmark she was using to enhance her arcane powers did not seem to be able to help her exploit the energies in the manner Nox had just tried.

Relvain looked around and saw four mirrors on the walls around the circular room. “I’m just a dwarven fighter,” she said. “I don’t see anything.”

She could tell Andrea had further destabilizing the iron bars blocking the stairs, but that did not stop Nox. He was able to balance on the shifting bars well enough that he got out on them and was again able to exploit the energies surging up from the stairs to weaken the wards.

So Relvain decided to try attacking the bars directly with her axe. But her glancing blow only overloaded the wards, destroying the bars and releasing a blast of force which hurt the rest of the group, but left her unharmed.

“It’s only force damage,” she told them. But Nox took further damage when he fell to the stairs below.

It took Roland the Betrayer two days of walking through winding jungle paths to reach the shantytown he had seen from the cliffs. The jungles were full of dangers and he had to fight them, but they were nothing he did not expect. “It’s a jungle, after all,” he told himself.

Andrea Ravn was hardly surprised when four Planestalker Marauders erupted — one after another — from the mirrors after the Stair Gate collapsed.

She was surprised, however, at what happened when they began putting some serious hurt on one of the Planestalkers: First, it partially phased into another plane, making it insubstantial and difficult to damage. Then, it teleported itself and her into that other plane.

She found herself in an extradimensional space 10 feet tall and 20 feet wide. She couldn’t see any of the others and she doubted they could see her.

“I guess I’m on my own,” she said, swinging her new sword — the Sword of Bahamat she planned to give to Garen — and connected solidly. Both of them reappeared back near the Stair Gate.

“When they teleport you,” she told the others, “just hit them as hard as you can.”

They finished off the one which had taken her away, then the next one phased, taking Relvain with it.

“When they phase,” she told Nox, “they are about to teleport you to another dimension.”

Then Relvain reappeared, and they killed the Marauder which had taken her.

The next time she was teleported it took two blows to force it back to their plane of existence. “If you could call this place ‘our plane’ of anything.” she thought.

Admiral Kada’ne was still fretting about the reaction to his decision to send a scout to check out the Fane of Chanir. “I know they think I’m a coward. But those fools should have reported back by now. They think that the Sovereign Gate make them invulnerable.”

Nox Rhasgar was hardly surprised when he found himself whisked away to another dimension.

“Andrea and Relvain both warned me.”

He hit the Planestalker with an Elemental Bolt.

“Not as much magic in this place,” he told himself as the arcane energies left his fingers. “But that should be enough to force it to return me do the Stair Gate.”

Sure enough. As soon as he hit it with the bolt, it took so much damage it could no longer hold them in that strange room. They returned to the exact spots they had been teleported from.

After that, it was no problem to finish it off. But it left no bodies to search. The others gave him the Bloodgem. They had figured out what it was. They told him it would improve his defenses whenever he knocked out or killed an enemy.

“Anything that improves my Reflexes,” he told them as he replaced his Amulet of Truth with the blood-red crystal. Even before he had killed anything while wearing it, he could tell it improved his ability to dodge out of the way of an attack. "I can always put the amulet back on if we need to search for hidden doors.

“Or if you want Insight for diplomatic situations,” Andrea reminded him. Andrea had one of her own and she really liked those Amulets of Truth.

Andrea checked out the other door in the Hall of Shards, but it just turned out to be another way to get to the Stair Gate.

“Just as Andrea had predicted,” he told himself.

They decided to go down the stairs.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if we just came back to this room?” the Warlord joked as they started downward. “From above?”

But that seemed unlikely to Nox since there were no stairs coming down from the ceiling. Sure, the dimensions were strange here near the Sovereign Gate, but he did not see how that could happen.

The ivory stair led them downward. Nox estimated they were about 300 feet down when they saw a white light seething in a corrosive whirlpool filling a vast chamber below.

The air was hazy above a stone platform extending from the bottom of the stairs across the seething vortex. Pillars of glowing stone rose above the maelstrom, their surfaces crawling with an ever-shifting flow of arcane runes.

The far side of the chamber was taken up with what appeared to be an oversized arcanist’s study. Tall shelves and wide tables were covered with well-worn tomes and tattered scrolls.

He was sure Andrea was going to love this place. She was always looking for more rituals, even though she couldn’t perform them all.

A violet-skinned eldritch giant glanced up in surprise at their approach, the Whitefire Mark burning at his wrist as he held up a hand in warning.

“I am Haryssus. It has been long years since any but the masters of this place breached the Stair Gate, but those who did so lived no longer than will you. I have no quarrel with
you. Flee while you can.”

Nox could tell the words were more a warning than a threat. Andrea confirmed this a few seconds later by telling him and Relvain she could detect faint traces of magickal shackles around the giant’s ankles and wrists.

“I don’t think this giant is the real threat,” Relvain told them, shaking off her race’s natural hatred of giants.

A sudden flare of yellow-white light heralded the appearance of a ghostly Githyanki. Larger than the shades they fought in the fane, this creature was wielding twin bastard swords, a white light burning in its eyes as it attacked.

...To Protect Nox...

…From a Hazard Both Friendly and Unfriendly

As she watched Nox attack the Astral Giants in the Shard Room, Andrea noticed the room itself seemed to be a hazard.

The floor and ceiling, composed of huge crystal shards, each had pure planar energy surges within their shards, which focused and honed it like lenses into twin pulsing spheres of white light at the bottom and top of the chamber.

When Nox used an arcane power — in this case his Elemental Bolt with an Elemental Escalation — these Astral Nexuses aided his efforts, but the backlash from that aid could hurt him as well.

Then the Astral Nexus in the ceiling began shooting balls of pure astral essence at the Sorceror.

Using her Dragonmark for focus her Perception on things arcane in nature, she saw that she or Nox could calm the local arcane energies. If successful, the area around them would be outside the hazardous region for a short time.

Andrea could tell that if Nox tried to calm the local energies he would not be able to focus on subduing the Astral Giants.

“So I will just spend as much of my concentration on using my Dragonmark to calm astral energies as it takes,” she told the others. “As long as Nox stays close to me, he should be safe.”

The Dreamer found herself back in the dream: the one where Obanar sent her to investigate the camp of the Hill Giants besieging the City of Argent. Only it was more of a cave than an encampment. “Makes sense,” she thought to herself. “Hill giants would find the nearest cave and set up camp there.” Still it seemed a bit more well-appointed than a makeshift bivouac in an empty cave. “Must’ve been planning this for a long time.” Once again, she found herself in a room with a bunch of giants. She noticed a Fire Elemental dancing in the flames of the hearth. Dashing from the Common Room, she found herself in the quarters of the Hill Giant Shaman. She tried to sneak through, but failed. Captured by the giants, she almost forgot who she was under their torture. Then she woke and remembered: She was Relvain Blackaxe the Dragonpinner

Troops were being brought in through the Portal, which Bejam was now calling “The World Gate.” Defenses were being set up: around the Gate … and outside as well, according to a Freerider she recognized. Sections of the fane had been walled off and mages she recognized from Nefelus were poring over the books Andrea had found in the libraries here.

One of them recognized her and waved.

“I did save their city from Chillreaver,” she thought as they went back to their books.

Bejam told her about the World Gate and the dangers it posed. When he told her the rest of The Order of the Black Feather had gone ahead to scout some mysterious location to which the Gate connected, she volunteered to go and help them.

“But first you will have to be given a Whitefire Mark,” the Deva Wizard told her. “Only Githyanki and their most trusted servants can pass through the World Gate. The Whitefire Marks are how they identify those servants.”

She knew enough about Githyanki to know that Bejam really meant “slaves” when he said “servants.” Just being polite.

A group of Wizards working on the bodies of the two Fomorian Painbringers were able to help Bejam transfer a Whitefire Mark to Relvain’s forearm.

“You can cover it with your armor,” he told her. “But it will feed upon your own life force to power its effects.”

Thus empowered, she was able to step through the World Gate — with the help of some of the ritual casters studying it — to find herself in a strange room crackling with arcane energies.

“Which makes sense,” she told herself. “Bejam said they were siphoning vast amounts of power from the Material Plane to this location.”

That was why the Order had been sent to clear the place.

She found Nox and Andrea in a lounge area. They were trying to bottle the magic-infused waters of a pool there. They only got two of their bottles filled before the arcane energies of the pool were depleted.

“We’ll have to wait 24 hours for the pool to be back to full strength,” Andrea told her. "We don’t have time for that. We can expect more Githyanki to come through here before it replenishes itself.

Andrea gave her one of the vials. “Drink this to turn a short rest into a more thorough sleep.” The other vial went to Nox.

They told her about another room — accessible from both sides — where two Astral Giants were meditating on what appeared to be Ritual Books. Relvain could tell Andrea could not wait to study the books herself.

They decided to try Diplomacy on the giants. The giants weren’t having any. They started blasting as soon as she opened her mouth.

When Nox returned fire, the Astral Nexus above them blasted him as well. When he was hit, Relvain found herself caught in the secondary burst which centered on Nox.

She was dazed by the blast. She decided to concentrate on defending herself while she tried to shake that off.

Which took her longer than she expected.

“Why are there no reports from the Sovereign Gate?” Admiral Kada’ne shouted. “Send someone to check on them.”

Nox Rhasgar saw that Relvain was having difficulty shaking off the effects of the white burst of astral energies. So he concentrated on shooting Energy Bolts at the Astral Giants. They separated, each heading towards a different door at each end of the platform bridging the room.

Eventually Relvain emerged from her daze to leap across to that bridge and engage the giants directly. By then Nox had knocked one of them out and was concentrating on the one which remained.

The one which Relvain was now forcing to concentrate on her.

Made taking it down that much easier. “Quick fight,” he thought to himself.

After the fight, they searched the bodies and found a Bloodgem Shard and 480 platinum pieces.

But Nox was already ready for the next fight. Peeking through the doors at one end of the bridge, he found another strange room: a round chamber of pale gray stone.

The air inside flared with swirling currents of white light — four circular mirrors were set along the walls, their surfaces rippling like quicksilver. In the center of the chamber, the stone floor was replaced by an uneven grid of black steel bars.

A stone plinth stands at the center of the barred floor, its sides set with glowing keyholes. Beneath the bars, steep ivory stairs could be seen twisting down into a haze of white light.

Using his Arcane powers, Nox was able to determine the ambient astral energy on the other side of the door was harmless. A stronger pulse of arcane power was surging, however, in the four mirrors.

Something was lurking within their silvered surfaces, waiting to be called forth.

The Trihorn Behemoth Andrea was riding had feet that were bigger than any giant had, so he suggested the Dragonborn Warlord wait at the mouth of the Portal Chamber until the Githyanki realized their weapons had disappeared.

Only one of the strike force noticed Nox sneaking in. His shouted warning was too late. He ran to the pile of weapons, grabbed them, and teleported back to the Portal Chamber which was sorta located in the middle of the lounge. There he threw the swords into the Astral Mist.

They didn’t quite go as far as he had hoped. The weapons just floated in the mist where he threw them.

“Oh, well, at least they don’t have them.”

Relvain the Dragonpinner found herself once again in the bowels of a Hill Giant fortress. “I must be dreaming again,” she thought. She remembered that in this dream Obanar had sent her to scout the area the Hill Giants were using as a base of operations to attack Argent, the Silver City.

When Andrea Ravn swallowed the Potion of Regeneration, she felt it sap the last of her emotional and physical reserves.

She hoped it would keep her alive long enough for Nox’s plan to work.

She charged around the curve of the wall on the back of her mount. The Behemoth’s heavy footsteps convinced her that sneaking up on the Strike Force was something best left to Nox and Jax.

Keeping the Githyanki from getting their weapons back proved harder than they expected. The Mindlashers didn’t seem to need them and the Warmongers were able to get past her using their Telekinetic Leaps. The Astraan — who was the only Githyanki carrying his weapon on his person — even helped by using his telekinetic powers to give the Warmongers extra leaps.

The Astraan’s weapon — a silver dagger — proved less effective.

“He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn,” Andrea observed as he watched the Astraan try to hit the Trihorn. “Or the backside of my mount.”

Eventually the battle focused around the only chokepoint between the Githyanki and their weapons: the doorway to the Portal Chamber.

By inching her way into position to flank the Mindlashers and give her mount a chance to use her horns, she was able to get to a spot where she could heal Nox.

Who was now beset by the Warmongers who had retrieved their weapons. Beset inside the Portal Chamber.

The Portal Chamber where Nox’s magickal fire seemed incapable of missing. The Warmongers died first, then the Mindlashers. The Astraan surprised them when he ran. Instead of heading for one of the other exits from the lounge, it leapt into the Astral Mist and then to the Portal itself.

Andrea knew the Portal was some kind of Sovereign Gate, capable of sucking magickal energies from other realms, even other Planes of Existence.

Yet it had no runes: the runes that were key to understanding every other gate or portal that she had ever seen.

“How can you find it without the runes to concentrate upon?”

She was so desperate to understand the Sovereign Gate that she used all of the arcane powers her Dragonmark gave her to try and perceive how the Portal — or Gate or whatever it was — functioned.

But all she got was a brief vision of the place where the Astraan fled: some kind of shipyard where an Astral Fleet was assembling.

...The World Gate...

…to the Well of the Worlds…

“Damn Imps,” Andrea Ravn swore as she woke up from the dream of Korvosa.

She had been determined to beat them this time. She had convinced Jaz and Nox to think about Korvosa as the Chaniri priests performed the ritual that would allow them to all be in the same dream.

But the result was the same: The mad prophet foretold of doom involving a plague and Nox — who appeared as a vengeful friend in this dream — was once again able to heal himself of the madman’s disease; the imps attacked again, drawing the attention of the Korvosan Guard; once again, the guards found the queen’s broach on her and carted them all off to the castle…

…and once again their sleep was less restful than it should have been.

“So we’ll have to go through the World Gate tired and angry,” she told the others.

They took Krasire’s mount, but not their own. Jaz rode it, while Andrea and Nox would try to make it to the door. Even without opening it — “Who knows what’s on the other side?” — they might be able to wedge themselves into the vestibule and avoid the worst effects of the Astral Mist.

Jaz decided against entering the dream as a drug addict. It was what Andrea wanted her to do, but it sounded just a little too dangerous. As they meditated on the mythical city of Korvosa, she imagined herself as the friend of a drug addict who was strung out on Shiver. Gaedren Lamm, her friend’s drug dealer, would still have to pay for his crimes, but she would be just a little more Streetwise. It turned out that meant that Andrea didn’t even recognize her in the dream. And Gaedren Lamm was already dead. On his body Andrea found a broken broach. They took it to a jeweler who refused to fix it. He recognized it as the queen’s stolen broach and he didn’t want to get caught with stolen property.

But they still had to go through the World Gate — through something called the Sovereign Gate — to the Well of the Worlds.

“The Alliance needs to know what the emperor plans to do with all this extra magickal energy they are pulling from our world,” Bejam told her. The Wizard from Nefelus was convinced the Githyanki would not be increasing their risk of discovery if they were not expecting to use the Material Plane’s magickal energy for something important.

That meant they had to go back to the Well of the Worlds soon, even though Nox and Andrea had been forced back the last time they tried by some kind of Astral Shade. They expected it to be even stronger this time.

“It hadn’t been attacked in thousands of years the last time,” Andrea told her. “This time it may be expecting us.”

The Dreamer found himself once again escorting Andrea through the streets of Korvosa. The riots were still going on all around them, crazies screaming about dooms coming down on the city. Once again, one of them rushed at the Dreamer while shouting about some plague which was coming to the city in the future. Once again, the disease he carried was very real … very much in the present. Once again, the Dreamer shook him off and was infected himself. Once again, he healed himself. Once again, they made their way through the Academae District. Once again, he and Andrea looked at each other — the drug addict’s friend was not paying attention — and he fired at the imps who were attacking them. Once again, he missed and the imps got the broach. Then the Queen’s Guard showed up. Once again, they clubbed the imps, found the broach, and hauled them off to prison for possession of stolen property. The Dreamer awoke, as Nox Rhasgar … once again, rested … but not well rested.

Nox Rhasgar knew what his job was: Blast his way past the Shade and get his back to the door. The vestibule by the door was the only place he could make a stand without getting swept by the Shade into the Astral Mist which surrounded the Sovereign Gate itself.

Jaz was coming through on Krasire’s mount — a hippogryph which could fly out of the mist. Andrea could fly — a bit — using her vestigial wings.

But Nox would have to rely on the others if he should find himself swimming in the stuff. As much as he like casting in the room filled with arcane energies, he didn’t want to find himself adrift in the Astral Mist again.

Getting the Shade out from between him and the door wasn’t as hard as he expected. He hit it with an Elemental Bolt — this time it didn’t turn substantial — it teleported to another location and hit them with an Astral Shockwave.

But he didn’t get his back all the way to the door, and the thing’s next teleport put it right between him and the door.

Eventually he was able to work his way all the way to the door and pour on the damage. Jaz was getting the hang of her Backstabs and Sneak Attacks.

The Shade got Andrea down several times, but her regenerating armor kept bringing her back to her feet. Nox downed his own Potion of Regeneration just in case it was able to knock them both out.

Then the creature started to work on Jaz as well. If it got them all three out simultaneously, it could finish them off, one by one, even with their regeneration going full blast.

They managed to kill it just as Jaz was bloodied for the first time.

“Not a lot of time to spare,” Nox thought to himself as they sent Jaz out to explore the next room.

Andrea Ravn swore she would never again try the streets of Korvosa in her dreams. But she had to admit she had to sleep sometime. And that meant the possibility of dreaming. “What was it that Jerath always said about that?” she asked. “I remember: ‘Aye, there’s the rub’.”

Jaz remembered the trick she and Maggie used to play on their teachers.

At the Black Dragon Society Enclave, they were each taught to impersonate the same people — sort of stereotypes, Maggie liked say, although their teachers called them “archetypes.” One of these archetypes was named Jasmine. They practiced Jasmine with each other so much their Jasmine voices became indistinguishable from each other.

Eventually their physical Jasmine disguises become so close the pictures their teachers gave them that Maggie — who was much better at disguise than Demyse — was able to duplicate her Jasmine disguise.

Perfectly.

So perfectly their teachers often mistook one for the other. This enabled one of them to sneak away for various forms of mischief while the other pretended to be the other … as Jasmine.

She thought about this as she slipped through the door of the domed room where the Sovereign Gate was located.

“Just a curving hall,” she thought as she worked her way around to the right. Then she found a kind of lounge, filled with couches.

Beyond the couches, the dome opened into a window. Out of the window, Jaz could see the Astral Sea. Floating there were other globes. She was able to imagine that the dome she was in looked much like those, if she could view this one from the other globes.

Lounging on some of the couches: Githyanki, Warmongers and Mindlashers; the one who seemed to be the leader was armed only with a silver dagger.

“They don’t seem to be expecting us,” she told herself, noting they had left their weapons — except that silver dagger — piled on their gear nearby. “I better report back to the others.”

They seemed to be gathered around a pool of water in the center of the lounge.

“Might be just the thing that Andrea was hoping to find when she brought that bottle.”

...To the Well of Worlds...

…And Quickly back again.

As his companions rested from their battle with the last of the Githyanki invaders, the robed Githyanki told Nox Rhasgar the temple complex was called the Fane of Chaniir. Andrea had already convinced their leader, the priestess known as Talanee, to share some of their secrets.

Now that they had helped them clear their fane of invaders, the Chaniri — which is what they called themselves — were glad to share their story and answer Nox’s questions.

“The only problem,” he told himself, “is I’m not sure what to ask.”

They told him they were planning to leave. After they had consecrated the bodies of their dead and buried them.

“This holy place has lost its sanctity," Talanee told him, "debased as it is by the blood of Zetch’r’r’s traitors. Our fate lies elsewhere now.”

He knew that Zetch’r’r was the new emperor of all the Githyanki. Until now, though, he had no idea that some Githyanki were opposed to his rule, almost loyal to their previous ruler — Queen Vlaakith.

“Zetch’r’r is a dog leading dogs," the Chaniri leader told him. “But those who lash themselves to his leash see not the chains he wears. The false emperor talks of rebuilding the glory of the Githyanki, but he is a pawn of forces he has not the mind to understand nor the will to stand against.”

Talanee continued: “In the long eons since the gods and Primordials fought for control of all creation, Bahamut and Tiamat have undergone a never-ending sibling war. Driven apart yet drawn constantly together by their dichotomous natures, the two gods fight endless battles, both face to face and through their proxies in all the many worlds."

When Andrea woke up, Nox could see she was interested in this part of the story. She asked about it.

“Among all races, long ages of peace follow epochs of tyranny as each deity ekes out a temporary victory over the other,” Talanee told them. “But in the end, always, the battle continues. Until now.”

Nox wanted to know what was different about the War Between the Dragons now. The Githyanki priestess started to answer before he could even ask.

“In this age, a new war looms between these two ancient adversaries. On both sides, armies amass across worlds in preparation for brutal conflict, but Tiamat means to see that this battle with Bahamut is the last. The dragon queen seeks to slay the Platinum Lord, and Zetch’r’r has sworn himself and the Githyanki to the service of this dark goal.”

The Chaniri soon became so busy burying their dead that Nox had time to sleep. He dreamt of a city he had only heard of in dreams. The Fire Archon in his dream about the City of Brass told him the Crown of Fangs could be found in a place called Kosovo.

And now he dreamed of that place.

The streets of Kosovo were already dangerous. People rioting; the king was dead. But the noise of the riots were not the only thing keeping the Dreamer from his goal — the palace — the rioting had wakened monsters in the sewers. The pavement cracked and a horrible creature burst forth. The Dreamer fired an Elemental Bolt at it.

And missed.

Nox woke to find himself back in the Fane of Chaniir. The Chaniri were still burying their dead.

Well, not burying them in any sense that Nox was used to. They cleaned the bodies, consecrating them for burial. Then they had piled them into the furthest rooms of the fane. Now they were walling up those rooms, using the broken stones the invaders had left everywhere in their path of destruction.

As they worked he asked Talanee why they were being tortured.

“The Chanhiri’s task is to keep watch over the World Gate for the Githyanki," she told him. "In making our opposition known to the plots of the false emperor Zetch’r’r, we were first shunned, then assaulted. However, our craft allowed us to seal the gate in ways that Zetch’r’r’s thralls could not overcome.”

After Andrea woke up, she had some questions of her own. And she began her own research in the library of the fane.

The World Gate was opened by the Chaniri as they prepared to depart through it.

Nox had already used a scroll to send a message to Amyria. He got a response asking for the runes inscribed around the World Gate. When they sent those, help arrived in the form a task force led by Bejam.

Bejam was the Nefalese representative on the Alliance’s Council. Andrea showed him the library and he got to work.

The Nefelese Wizards in the task force wanted to know what the World Gate was. So Bejam asked Talanee and Andrea, who was already studying there.

“The World Gates are the prime portals through which the Githyanki first mastered the connections between planes," Talanee told them. But this answer was not enough for Andrea.

“This World Gate is set within the mortal realm, with others in the Feywild and the Shadowfell. More distant gates in nameless planes are whispered of, but they are beyond my knowledge.”

Nox saw that the Githyanki were preparing to perform some ritual magic at the glowing sphere they called the World Gate. Apparently this gave Andrea ideas.

She showed Krasire’s Ritual Book to the Chaniri ritual casters and asked them if they could cast one of the rituals she could not master: Dream Concordance.

Nox went along with it when she asked him to join her in this concordance: where they could both join each other in a dream about the city of Kosovo. Nox did not share his previous dream about the city.

In the dream, Andrea was trying to take a broach to the queen, but they were arrested instead when the queens guards found the broach on his person. They woke little rested.

Just like before.

The group who came through the Gate had been busy while they dreamed. They were organizing the defense. Apparently they agreed with Nox’s plan to use the Freeriders to patrol the area around the outside of the fane. Inside, they were preparing magickal defenses for the inevitable moment when Emperor Zetch’r’r’s forces realize their strike force had not reported back from the Fane of Chaniir.

Bejam called the Andrea to one of the library chambers in the fane — the one she had shown him. He told Nox, “I do not want the things I have learned to become common knowledge yet.”

He followed Bejam and Andrea there. Bejam had obviously developed some understanding of the operation of the World Gate. He told them of the existence of the Well of Worlds, but Nox could see what he had learned had put him on edge.

“The Githyanki priestess spoke truth regarding the World Gates," he told them. "The circle here siphons the planar energy of the mortal realm, drawing it to a site beyond. This Well of Worlds is spoken of in the lore here, but the fact that the Githyanki have kept the site secret even from Nefelus demonstrates its importance. Indeed, the existence of the Well and its power goes some way toward explaining the advantage the Githyanki have gained in this war.”

Andrea had been more interested in the discovery of the World Gates and how it fit into the history of the Githyanki, but Nox remembered what she said of the The Well of Worlds: “It is a site of powerful planar magic, built by Chanhiir in the lost age of our race and open only to those of Githyanki blood. It is a planar mote existing in no world—fueled by the energy of the Astral Sea but not set within it. The Well of Worlds is the center of the portal network that is the lifeblood of the Githyanki empire. It is the site through which elite Githyanki strike teams travel the planes, including the force charged with seizing the fane.”

“How did they send the Fomorian Painbringers through?” Andrea wanted to know. “They are certainly not Githyanki.”

He already had heard this from Priestess Talanee, but he let the Wizard from Nefelus explain: “The Whitefire Mark is a mystical sigil implanted only in the most trusted servants of the Githyanki — those granted access to the Well of Worlds. The sigils are a permanent magical brand that burns with a white flame powered by the bearer’s own life force.”

But Bejam wanted to tell them more about the Well of the World, even though Nox could tell Andrea was already thinking about how they could use the sigils to infiltrate the Well itself.

“The Well is a place that touches all other places — all planes of existence, all sites in those planes. From the Well of Worlds, the Githyanki have access to anywhere in all of creation.”

But it seemed that even more was happening.

“If the Well of Worlds was merely as this Talanee described it," Bejam said, “a portal for moving the Githyanki’s elite forces — I would wish to know more of it. However, the brief period of my study here has shown that the World Gate is drawing off planar energy greatly in excess of its normal operation.”

“I can see that,” Andrea said. “I have been reading the lore before you got here. According to this library, the planar energy should not be enough to be detectable.”

Bejam agreed, telling them his fellow Wizards were detecting a high rate of power drain from the Mortal Realm. “These books say it is the general policy of the Githyanki to keep drain low. That is probably why the Nefelese never detected it before. They wanted to keep it secret.”

The wizard’s face grew grim. "From what the Chanhiri said, Zetch’r’r had specific purpose in seizing the fane, and I am fearful as to what that purpose might be.”

Andrea asked him how long before reinforcements came through to find out what happened to Emperor Zetch’r’r’s forces who attacked the fane.

“I do not know how long the Githyanki will await the return of their forces from the fane," Bejam told them. "But if they discover us here, their retribution will be swift. We must send a request to the Coalition for reinforcements to hold the fane in the event of another Githyanki assault. For my part, I will convince Nefelus to send more aid of its own. If the worst comes to pass, we can hopefully hold the fane long enough for you to discover what the Well of Worlds is — and what kind of threat it represents.”

“So, you want us to go through this World Gate?” he asked.

Andrea was already ahead of him. “Can your Wizards transfer the Whitefire Marks to us? Otherwise, the World Gate will not let us through. We are not Githyanki.”

Bejam told them he could perform the ritual himself. He and Andrea agreed get the marks.

The ritual by which the Whitefire Mark is bonded to a living creature seemed simple enough, but the exertion that showed in Bejam when he was done showed the potency of the magic that has been imbued.

As the ritual was completed, the sigil flared to life on his wrist, its outline of white flame writhing around the stark lines of a Githyanki blade.

Though the mark could be covered by his sleeve or Andrea’s armor easily
enough, Nox felt its flame still flaring — pulsing in time with the beating of his heart.

While Bejam was completing the ritual, the Chaniri finished opening the World Gate and stepped through. Two Nefelese mages began staring into its murky depth, trying to discern what lay on the other side.

“Beyond the World Gate lies a portal the likes of which we have not seen before. It has no sigil sequence. Rather, its location is fixed by psychic energy and the flow of planar power through it. A force of Githyanki a half-dozen strong arrived there only an hour ago, but we have seen no other traffic before or since.”

So urgent was the need to find out what was happening at the Well of the Worlds that Nox and Andrea rode their mounts through before the others had time to have their Whitefire Marks transferred.

Closer in, Roland the Betrayer saw what looked to him like a thin, tenuous footpath winding its way along the low ridge, just inside the fog line. A wider path headed downhill, into the jungle and in the approximate direction of that hump near the center of the valley. The small hill with defensive walls of some kind near its top. “Not a very high place to build a fortification,” he thought as began to work his way down the footpath.

Andrea Ravn found herself wishing she had not used her Draconic sidestep to escape the Shade’s initial blast.

“It would have proved more useful now,” she told herself. “Or about any other time during this fight.”

It was hard to stay on the platform…

“Although he hasn’t used the Astral Blast as often as I expected.”

While the Shade managed to stay just out of her reach, Andrea used her rudimentary wings to get herself back to the platform — repeatedly. After Nox went into his Dragonborn-fireball form, she had to use her chain to drag him back to the platform, even though he could use his fireballs from anywhere.

She had used her Foe Stone to figure out the thing was vulnerable to Force damage. The thing seemed to be trying to tell her more. It kept vibrating after some of the Shade’s attacks.

“It’s almost as if the Foe Stone is trying to tell me that those attacks have something else to them…”

…Something it just wasn’t able to communicate.

She noticed the creature became substantial after they hit it. Nox was able to set it up with his fire breath and then hit it with his Elemental Bolts. Even Andrea could use her breath weapon to force it to become substantial.

Which gave Nox more chance to hit it with powerful spells. Which seemed to be especially accurate in the magic-infused chamber.

Soon she was wheezing from overusing her breath weapon and they were both taking heavy damage from the Shade. She still could not reach it, so she had no more chance to set up Nox’s bolts. Half of them were passing through, doing some damage, but not enough.

“What we really need is Krasire on his mount.” She knew the Shardmind’s Hippogriff could fly through the Astral Mist with ease. And the Foe Stone said the creature would be vulnerable to his force magic.

Fortunately, she had remembered to memorize the Sigils on the World Gate. They were able to go back through to get reinforcements.

...in the Portal Hall...

…Finally Gets the Order and the Freeriders…

Andrea Ravn wanted to press on quickly to the next room. She wasn’t sure yet she could trust the mystery woman’s skills as a scout.

“Calls herself ‘Jaz’,” she thought to herself. “Yet she couldn’t sneak up on those torturers.”

She threw open the double doors and found another pair of doors just past a small room.

From beyond the second set of double doors came a sudden shout of alarm and the sounds of combat. Over the clash of swords and the shrieks of dying Githyanki, the familiar voice of Megan Swiftblade rang out.

“You laid claim to Elsir Vale, but our lands still stand free! Our people will not kneel to you, mudskin, nor will the wider world you covet! We will not fall!”

“I’m leading the way,” Andrea yelled as she forced her way through those doors as well. She could hear the others following. Even the Githyanki priests were anxious to get in on the battle to free their fane.

Before the stairs on the far side of the hall, Megan Swiftblade stood with the severed head of a Githyanki captain clutched by the hair. The Freeriders were bloodied but defiant behind her, the Githyanki in the chamber spreading out in preparation for attack.

She could tell the Freeriders were outnumbered — for all of Megan’s bravado. As Jaz charged in to surprise them from behind, Andrea took advantage of the fact the invader Githyanki’s attention was all on Megan to get a little surprise of her own.

The Freeriders and the robed Githyanki who were fighting on their side were soon cutting down the invaders and getting cut down themselves. She made a fateful decision and started healing the Freeriders whenever they fell.

“Probably the best thing I can do to win this battle,” she told herself as she instructed the others to drink the potions of regeneration she had brought for them.

Soon the odds were a little more even.

Storm Johnson told his followers, “We need something which will help us intimidate the Djinn of the City of Brass if we are ever to negotiate with them. I have found references to a powerful artifact: the Crown of Fangs.” He told them it was made from the teeth of the first Blue Dragon. “Khazavon is said to have sprung from the ground where one of the Scales of Io fell. He allied with Tiamat from the beginning and fathered the line which became the Blue Dragon Horde. When he was slain, his parts were deliberately scattered, so they could not be used to bring him back. Khazavon’s teeth were used to make a Major Artifact which could possibly help someone who was sufficiently attuned to it to intimidate the rulers of the City of Brass. I will send a message to Amyria and see if she can contact Nox Rhasgar. Maybe in his travels he can find the crown.”

Relvain Blackaxe knew she was having a dream about the Hill Giants attacking the city of Argent. Behind enemy lines. Inside the fortress they had built outside the city. She was fighting her way out. Swinging her axe in frustration, she missed…

…and awoke to find herself alone in the secret room they had discovered in the Githyanki tunnel complex near Thiradeth, an outpost north of Elsir Vale.

No sign of her companions, except the Minotaur who still snored loudly in the corner. Assuming they had pressed onward, she applied the right-hand rule and found another room full of rotting corpses, then a martial-arts training facility.

“Looks like they’ve been here,” she told herself when she saw two more corpses. Unlike the Githyanki corpses she found in the first room, these were freshly killed. And she heard the sound of fighting from the room beyond.

She found a battle royale there: Githyanki corpses everywhere; Megan and the Freeriders with Andrea healing them.

Her allies had even recruited some of the robe-wearing Githyanki to fight on their side. Unarmed, they were willing to fight against the heavily armored invaders who were wielding their silver swords.

She saw two groups of the sword-wielders who were wearing plate. Andrea was attracting the attention of the closer bunch, so she decided to charge across to the others who were essentially unscathed. Well, the robed ones had the far group surrounded — along with some of the Freeriders — but it was taking shouts of encouragement from Andrea to keep them on their feet.

“I’ll give them something to keep their minds off theses cloth- and leather-wearers,” she told herself. For the Freeriders preferred leather so they could keep their bow arms free.

Once Andrea and the mystery elf finished off the other bunch they came over to help. But she had already bloodied one of them.

Maggie agreed to meet with Garen Bladerun. He was interested in her plan to help in the rebuilding of the city of Overlook. The Paladin had plans of his own: to start a new training academy for Paladins of Bahamat. She knew just the place.

As the battle drew to a close, Jaz remembered how to use her Sneak Attacks along with her Backstabs. She found she could even do Sneak Attacks without stabbing her opponents in the back.

Soon she was doing more damage than the dwarven shieldmaiden who had joined the battle late.

Once they were able to concentrate on the last two Githyanki, Andrea introduced her to the others as an Elf. She could tell the Dwarf didn’t like Elves much.

She wasn’t so sure about one of the Githyanki priests. While the other clerics wandered off to consecrate their dead, he was eying her suspicious. “I wonder if he suspects my true race?” she asked herself.

As if in answer, the priest winked at her. Then he walked over and told her he wanted to show her something.

He took her over to the body of a Warmonger he had been searching. From under the dead Githyanki’s breastplate he pulled out a hat.

An ordinary hat.

The force sphere in the middle of the room pulsed ominously. Spitting out the occasional tendril of force.

...Get an Unexpected Rescue...

…Just As a Torture Session Begins.

When Krasire told Andrea of meditations, the Dragonborn Warlord told her to return to those reveries.

“Get some rest. You still look exhausted. We’ll take care of this ambush you’ve discovered.”

Sure enough, while he meditated, Krasire was able to follow their battle telepathically. The ambushers were attacked, killed. And he got his rest.

He came out of his meditations to find Shadowfox chained in the corner. They both seemed to be refreshed.

He heard the sounds of battle echoing through the halls outside the secret room where they were resting. Reluctantly, he unchained Shadowfox and they hurried toward the crashing and roaring.

The roaring turned out to be Deep Speech and was being produced by two Fomorian Painbringers. Apparently they had been torturing a group of the Githyanki in the saffron robes.

This brought both of them up short. They had run into a fair number of the robes as they worked their way through the complex of the tunnels. The robe-wearers chained to the wall in this room were the first they had seen who were alive.

The ruined martial training hall was lined with shattered weapon racks and filled with what appear to be pillars of yellow-white light extending floor to ceiling. These pillars shifted slowly, drifting across the chamber as they flared and faded. In the haze of light, 10 Githyanki in tattered robes were chained together hand and foot and huddled along one wall.

Two hulking fomorians paced before them, one clubbing the sodden remains of a Githyanki corpse with its flail. The other was already attacking a mystery woman who seemed to have joined their infiltration team.

“Look, I know they act like they are full of themselves,” Megan Swiftblade told the other Freeriders. She knew they needed to take some time to heal. “But Garen told me about his cousin Andrea. He and Samwise were the ones who went after Sarshan when he was assassinating Freeriders. We should at least give these Black Feathers a chance to prove themselves. Notice how the opposition has grown weaker the farther in we go? They may be drawing off the Githyanki. For now, we need to rest. We may be able to get some sleep if the Order of the Black Feather has attracted Githyanki attention.”

Nox Rhasgar was frustrated. At first the weaker of the two Painbringers had put the Evil Eye on Nox himself, despite the difficulty it had overcoming his Will.

Yet the Fomorian switched the Eye to Krasire when it became apparent the Shardmind was doing most of the damage. Nox was not used to being beat out by others in that department.

Then he remembered his Flame Bracers. And almost immediately he started feeling the fire. He didn’t even have to transform into his Burning Transformation alter ego. Andrea told him the enemies had poor reflexes, he switched from Ignition to Elemental Bolts.

Sure enough. They were more successful. While the Giant Fomorians had the Fortitude to just power their way through the Ignition fires, their lumbering forms could not dodge a concentrated Elemental Bolt.

“Have to remember that: Ignition for little things that can dodge; Elemental Bolts for big guys who cannot dodge.”

The Dreamer found it dark and strange in the swamp where she hid to find the Giant Centipede. “Must be the Shadowfell,” she thought. “Good place to find slithering creatures.” No matter how she hid, however, she found no suitable creature for her necromantic experiment. For some reason, she knew she had to craft an undead centipede. She even had a name for it once she created it. “Nightshade.” And Cain woke with start to find herself chained in the secret room of the cave complex.

Andrea Ravn was standing between the two hulking brutes, so she was taking most of the damage. Gulping a Potion of the Regeneration, she was able to stay alive. But, boy, was she glad when they finally went down.

“The potion had drained the last of my resources,” she told them. And she offered Krasire the magical components he needed to perform his Comrade’s Succor ritual. “It’s the only way I’m going to be able to survive the next battle.”

On the bodies of the Fomorians, they found:

a dark iron ring;

a pair of tattered gray boots (with kind of a haunting aspect to them, which drew Shadowfox’s attention);

four amulets; and

three gems.

The conversation she started once she unchained the Githyanki and treated their wounds produced some interesting information:

They are known as The Faithful of Chanhir.

They are led by a priestess named Talanee.

Their Fane was attacked by the followers of the new leader of the Githyanki, Zetch’r’r.

...To Help Andrea and Nox...

…Ambush the Ambushers Waiting…

…for them outside the secret room.

Andrea Ravn woke from a disturbing dream with a start. In the dream, she was arrested for possession of a stolen item — the Queen’s Broach.

Unable to return to sleep, she tried to sketch out the city which figured so prominently in her dreams. As far as she knew, it did not actually exist on the material plane of existence. In the dreams, however, Korvosa did not seem to be part of any of the non-material planes.

Once she sketched out the map she was building in her head from the dreams, she noticed that Krasire seemed to be struggling with his meditations. Interrupting those meditations didn’t seem a good idea at first, but the Shardmind soon focused his eyes on her and spoke.

“I have been struggling with the mental powers around us. First they tried to find our hideout. Then they concluded we had left the caves after suffering the attack of the Shades. I think they believe the Shades drove us out after we killed their Mindlashers.”

Andrea asked her if they were still outside the secret room.

“They stay away from the balcony. Seem to know it is haunted by the Shades. They may be invaders in this complex. Seem to know they can pass through the balcony without being attacked as long as they don’t linger.”

The elements of a plan began to form in Andrea’s mind.

“They have reinforced the guardpost outside. We may be trapped in here. Some of them are waiting to ambush us below the balcony. I’ve been able to penetrate their mental defenses. I need to meditate more to get some rest. And to keep anyone elsewhere in the complex from knowing we are here.”

As Krasire resumed his meditations, Andrea told their new companion — Demyse was the mystery woman’s name — and Nox what her plan entailed.

The Dreamer found himself swimming in the Grand Canal of the City of Brass, having scoured the markets of the city to find the information Storm Johnson was seeking. A Fire Archon, impressed with the Dreamer’s ability to swim in a canal of molten fire, tells him the truth: A Cyclops slave Seer has foretold that only the Crown of Fangs can free the slaves bound to the Efreets who rule the city. It is located in Korvosa, the Jewel of Varisia. Just then, Nox Rhasgar woke to find himself back in the caves.

Demyse Darkstrider liked the plan. She would sneak in and make her way down the stairs and try to backstab the ambushers below.

Then Andrea would grab Nox, run out to the circular opening in the balcony, leap through it, and use her wings to glide to the floor, where Nox would unleash a wave of fire on the ambushers.

Like so many plans, it failed to survive contact with the enemy.

First, as she tried to sneak down the stairs, one of the ambushers waiting at the bottom spotted her.

Second, when Andrea tried to fly down carrying the other Dragonborn, her wings did not support the two as well as the Warlord seemed to think they would.

“I would describe it as more of a controlled fall,” she thought to herself. “I bet Andrea could have managed it fine by herself. The Sorcerer may be even heavier than she is.”

The Sorcerer leapt to his feet and sprayed her enemies with fire, while Demyse herself found a likely corner to hide in.

“Too far from the enemy to backstab from here,” she thought.

Spotting a large number of bedrolls closer to the Githyanki, she realized where she would be spending most of the rest of the battle.

“Hiding under bedrolls; jumping out to stab them in the back.”

The Dreamer found herself once again in the city Korvosa. She was attacked by a sick madman-prophet. Then by imps. The Korvosan Guard captured her and found the Queen’s Broach on her. Andrea Ravn woke to find herself back in the secret room in the caves.

Nox Rhasgar found himself unable to escalate his Elemental Bolts. The Warmonger’s Telekinetic Crush did not hinder him much — he never depended much on mobility anyway — but the Warmonger’s Soulsword burst left him stunned.

The Mindlashers could do the the Telekinetic Crush as well. They had no stunning attacks, so they took down the Warmonger first. The Mindlasher were forced to rely on their Psychic Slams.

“Sure they keep knocking me down,” he thought. “But I just get back up and hit them with escalated bolts.”

The mystery lady was putting out a lot of backstabbing damage as well, hiding in the bedrolls and hitting the Mindlashers when they least expected it.

Soon, the enemies were all dead.

“No loot on them, though, since we already looted these rooms.”

Hearing screams from the room ahead, they sent the mystery woman — she said her name was Demyse Darkstryder — ahead to scout after a short rest.

...Shadowfox Alive...

…Cain Finds a Hidey Hole…

…where the remnants of the Order of the Black Feather can recuperate, while hoping their partners — The Freeriders led by Megan Swiftblade — are faring better.

Shade knew she had to be careful. She felt weak. The Dragonborn Warlord had restored her confidence. She was not sure how many times his shouts of encouragement would continue to re-invigorate her. She was able to creep forward to the edge of the balcony. She saw three Githyanki huddled around a firepit below. They were grousing in Deep Speech. She could tell that from their tone. Then three Shades emerged from the broken statues behind her on the balcony, cutting her off from the others making their down from some other room where they had set a fire. “So much for careful.”

The smoke from the fire forced Krasire further into the cave complex. The others were apparently burning the dead Githyanki bodies — which seemed to be everywhere.

The smoke was problematic. It would make it hard to retreat. If they had to retreat.

“I guess we better be sure we don’t have to do any retreating.”

Amyria had given Krasire a Scroll of Sending — a ritual he didn’t know. He was hoping to find some time to scribe it into his Ritual Book.

So far, no time: Amyria convinced Belinda to portal him to Tokk’it’s ship, which was anchored near a remote outpost north of Overlook; Tokk’it directed him to Birkeni, the half-elf captain at the outpost; Birkeni told him about the dead Githyanki his scouts had found, but when he flew Xerxes there the bodies were gone; it was easy to track Andrea’s Trihorn Behemoth to the mouth of a cave where he almost got blown up by an Astral Vent of some kind.

The cave was where he found The Order of the Black Feather burning the Githyanki bodies — “Weren’t they supposed to be investigating Githyanki bodies?” — and fighting Heroic Shades.

Delis Erinthal was taking her assignment seriously. She did know this Krasire fellow at all. He had made his way to the black crag by air, but now he was sneaking up on the other strangers as they fought some shades in the caves. His attack on Shades relieved her somewhat, so she stepped out of hiding and shot the ghost of some Githyanki hero who was assaulting one of the Dragonborn.

Nox Rhasgar was glad to have Delis’s help — and Krasire’s as well. Sure the Assassin could deal out some damage, but Shadowfox had a habit of getting herself into some bad situations…

…like the one she was in right now: surrounded by enemies, cut off from her friends, constantly being cut down, knocked down, and generally abused.

She had that noose attack, which seemed to be able to move her foes away from her. She even used it to drop one of the Shades through the hole in the balcony.

“Then she stopped using it for tactical advantage.” Nox had noticed that Shadowfox seldom seemed to learn from either her successes or her failures. “She just as likely to repeat the things which didn’t work as those which did work. Maybe it’s those multiple personalities of hers. Maybe she has to learn things over again in each mind that she has.”

In the middle of the valley, Roland the Betrayer saw a low rise, more a barren hump than an actual hill. He could just make out the straight edges of defensive walls near the top. Tendrils of smoke rose from what must be chimneys or campfires nearby.

As they searched the rooms where they fought the Githyanki and the Shades of their fallen heroes, Andrea Ravn was worried.

“Trinity Shadowfox is on her last legs,” she told the rest. “I’m not able to heal her now, let alone in another fight.”

Holing up to rest in a cave complex filled with Githyanki and their mind-reading powers posed its own problems. She had an idea about that, too. Her Dragonmark gave her a solution. All she needed was a place to use it.

Which Shadowfox found.

A secret door led to a hidden room. Inside, they found 360 platinum pieces and a Stone of Flame. Andrea kept the stone, even though she knew Nox could use it better than she could.

Shadowfox told them she had seen two more Githyanki who had not joined the fight.

“Gone to get reinforcements,” Andrea said.

She piled all the silver swords she could find into the secret room. Then she told the others to bed down for a long rest. “I’ve got a Mark of Detection. I can use it to cast Eavesdroppers Foil. Some of these Githyanki seem to be invaders of some kind, who killed the ones in robes. Looks like they looted the place. Bet that’s why we found no loot on the balcony.”

She told them she was sure the invaders had not found the secret room. “It wasn’t looted. That means they never found it. Maybe the Shades of their ancient heroes made it hard for them to search the balcony after they destroyed all the statues.”

Krasire volunteered to stay awake and guard the hidey hole mentally. “Eavesdroppers Foil will not protect us from their mental probing.”

“I can rest while I meditate,” Krasire said.

“Good. If they assault us mentally, you can fend off their efforts. They may even think we retreated from the caves entirely. They have to know we were hurt badly.”

Nox pointed out that Shadowfox had bled all over the place.

She told them to sleep and regain their strength. What was it Jerath always said? “To sleep, perchance to dream.”

As she dropped off, Andrea remembered what Grigore told her when Jerath said that:

...Gives Trinity a Clue...

…About the Reaper’s Masque

After her collapse in the library, Cain dreamed: She was still in the manor house of some ancient necromancer, she knew it. But she did not recognize the room. In the ceiling she saw her Reaper’s Masque. She could not reach it. Not without standing on Andrea’s shoulders. Relvain and Nox lifted her there. She reached up and grasped the masque.

And put it on her face. It began to speak to her.

“Hello, Shade,” said the whispery voice in her head when she awoke. Somehow she knew it was the voice of the masque the Raven Queen had given her. “Put me on.”

She put on the masque, and immediately knew that she was beginning to come into concordance with it.

She found herself lying on a bunk in a gently swaying vessel. It didn’t seem to be a vessel floating on water: Although Shade did not remember ever being on a boat, she knew this somehow.

“Perhaps I was on a boat sometime in my previous lifetime.”

The masque told her to investigate, and she did. Telling herself she would have done it without the prompting.

Emerging from her cabin, she found herself on the deck of Tokk’it’s flying ship, heading north. When she asked Andrea where they were going, the Dragonborn explained they were headed toward Thiradith.

Andrea explained this was a Nerathi ruin which had been rebuilt as a watchtower by the Alliance. From the Letter from Amyria, she knew this meant it was near one of the destinations of the portals which Cachlain told them that the Githyanki were using.

Just before sunset, they saw the watchtower in the distance. An upthrust embankment of sheer stone wall atop a white bluff, she could tell the site commanded a sweeping view of the rocky scrubland that spread to all sides.

A gate and drawbridge allowed access across a steep-sided ravine that protected the site on all sides. Sun-faded flags flew high above the ramparts, and the bridge was already down as they approached, landing far enough away to avoid alarming the outpost.

Birkeni, a veteran half-elf fighter, appeared to be the captain here. He met them at the gate, making no effort to hide his relief at seeing them. He told them there were no
stores or services here.

“I offer you free use of the outpost’s amenities and semiprivate accommodation in the barracks hall.” When Nox asked about the amenities he explained that he only meant the weaponsmith, armorer and such.

Once they arrived in the hall, they discovered they weren’t the first to respond to the watchtower’s summons. Megan Freerider greeted Andrea warmly and told her the Freeriders arrived that morning. “Good thing we were on another mission west of here,” she said. “We don’t have a flying ship to get us around so fast.”

Megan goes on to explain the flying ship is how her friend Garen Bladerun got away from Sarshan’s tower when it collapsed in the Elemental Chaos.

“I told your compatriots this morning all that I can report beyond what was sent in our missive. A week ago, one of our patrols found three dead Githyanki within a hundred strides of each other on one of the foothill tracks."

Then the Half-Elf betrayed one of his own bigotries by using a racial epithet.

“The Mudskins had been in some sort of fight by the look of them, but as the scouts came back to report, they were shadowed by a half-dozen more Githyanki, very much alive. Followed them to within sight of the watchtower, then fell back into the hills again.”

The patrol trail from the watchtower to the foothills was easy to follow, winding through thin stands of jack pine and patches of scrub grass that slowly disappeared as the rocky ground begins to climb.

The day was overcast as they reached a marker Birkeni spoke of — a great arch of rust-colored stone, beyond which the wall of the mountain began to rise.

It didn’t take long to locate the site where the Githyanki were found — three patches of blood-stained rock on the trail.

Of the bodies, there was no sign.

As soon as Andrea Ravn saw Shadowfox go down — for the first of many times — she knew her plan was unraveling. The two of them had climbed up to the entrance of the cave the Githyanki were guarding. The plan was to lower ropes for Nox and Relvain. But Andrea sent Shadowfox on ahead and she got spotted. Nox was climbing up on his own and had already reached the lower ledge. Relvain was using the ropes Andrea had lowered. Her progress was slow. And Shadowfox was already down, even if she was only faking.

They found another trail near the bodies and followed to the bluff of black stone which Relvain was climbing. The Assassin scouted it out and found two cave entrances, each guarded by over 10 Githyanki.

Shadowfox told them the Githyanki scouts showed very little aptitude for guarding the cave.

“Although right now they do seem to be doing a good job of beating the pulp out of her,” the Dragonpinner told herself.

With no patrols in sight, the Revenant had clear run of the trails that wrapped around the black stone bluff on both sides, easily spotting two caverns that might be entrances into some sort of complex within. The Freeriders took one and they took the other.

Nox had alreadry reached the top and was clearing out the weaker guards when she got to the top. Andrea was surrounded, guarding the unconscious form of Shadowfox.

“I hope she’s faking it,” she told herself as she waded in. "This looks like a job for a fighter.

The mist around him was virtually impenetrable, but after burying the murder weapon, Roland The Betrayer found it was beginning to clear. Suddenly it parted, and he found himself standing atop a hill. Similar fog-capped hills surrounded a jungle valley that stretched before him. To his left, a massive waterfall fed a river winding a serpentine path across the valley floor.

Nox Rhasgar found some of the weaker guards were pretty easy to kill, so he cleared them out using both his Ignition blasts and his firebreath. Two of them proved to be a little tougher.

One had Shadowfox trapped in an alcove. Shadowfox was garroting him, but let him go without doing much damage.

Nox told her to retreat to the shadows. After finishing off the weaker guards, Relvain did something with her shield that convinced both of the tough ones to rush her. She kept them busy.

“Two with one shot!” he said, as he was able to power two Elemental Bolts to kill both of them at once.

Searching the bodies, they found:

3,500 gold pieces, which Andrea put in her Platinum Pouch;

a crystal globe set with adamantine filigree;

a Jeweled mithral-mesh dagger scabbard; and

three Potions of Vitality.

At the top of some stairs, they found a door. No traps, no lock. Beyond, they found a small landing with a lot of rotting corpses.

Shadowfox was scouting ahead by crawling along the ceiling. Down some more stairs, they came to a turn-off to the right.

Shadowfox heard some voices coming from the turn-off, so the Assassin headed toward them.

Andrea insisted they following her closely. “Remember what happened when she got ahead of us before,” she told them.

When Nox got to the bottom of the stairs, however, he could not help being repulsed by the smell which emanated from the corridor Shadowfox had taken:

A New Shadowfox...

…Makes her Appearance

Andrea Ravn found no further treasures as she ransacked the wizard’s library. History of the Fabled Realm might prove valuable but this did not appear to be where Acererak stored his spellbooks.

They decided to make their way up to the next level of the manor house.

Nox noticed Shadowfox was lagging behind. When they all turned around to see what was wrong, the Assassin staggered back into the library, so they followed.

She grabbed the skull of the fallen naga, and held it next to the masque on her shoulder. She seemed to think the skull — from which the masque was made — looked like the naga’s skull, but the others could not see the resemblance. But Andrea noticed something: Both skull had latent magic on them. And the magic seemed to have the same flavor — at least to Andrea.

Then Shadowfox began to shake, and collapsed unconscious. They tried to heal her, but she remained unconscious. Andrea found a letter in Shadowfox’s clothing.

Reading the letter, Relvain saw it was from Amyria and seemed to be addressing all of them. Andrea wondered why Shadowfox hadn’t mentioned it.

“I guess we were pretty busy fighting the Bone Naga when she caught up with us,” the Warlord thought. “It must have slipped her mind when the fight was over.”

They decide to take Shadowfox down to the landing where they left Andrea’s Trihorn Behemoth. Relvain carried her. And Andrea brooded: “We’ll have to come back here when we leave to take her back to our own time.”

They found traps — of course, they found traps — starting with a spike trap. Andrea got a table from the wizard’s laboratory and used it to bridge the spikes. They found some suspicious holes in the floor ahead, so she used the table again to trigger this trap.

But the spikes or poison gas they were expecting did not emerge. Instead, gouts of flame set the table afire. Andrea had to throw it into the central shaft of the stairwell. They jumped, flew, and strolled — in the case of Nox — past the flames.

Andrea warned the others not to mention Acererak’s future when they tried to convince him to give up the rest of his Sky Metal. “It may help us convince him we are from the future, but he will be less likely to part with the metal if he knows he will need it for his necromancy.”

As they climbed to the top level of the building, she heard Acererak’s voice ring out.

“I offer you one chance to avoid my wrath, you cowardly thieves.”

She saw the robed figure had not turned or even paused in his work. He was turning dials and whispering words of power that Andrea could not really hear — but she felt them within her bones. She was able to hear his demand:

“Throw yourselves from my tower, and I shall allow fate to determine whether you live or die. “Otherwise, prepare to truly understand why I am numbered among the greatest wizards of Bael Turath.”

But Relvain quickly stepped in with some diplomatic flattery, telling Acererak they were from the future and — in the future — he was known all over the world, not just in Bael Turath. Nox followed up with a grand bluff.

Andrea knew they had to convince the wizard they were from the future. She had studied the model for his Tomb of Horrors and knew it varied somewhat from what he had eventually built. The historical record of the tomb’s traps was very extensive. So she pointed out the differences.

“Some of those changes … I was already considering,” Acererak told her. “And the others … I shall now consider. They seem like good ideas. I have to admit, this does suggest you may be from the future.”

They made their way through the slime traps and now faced the wizard across a causeway covered with glowing sigils. He had acknowledged their presence enough to turn and face them directly. He seemed genuinely interested about what they could tell him about the future. And Relvain seized on his interest to Bluff him with a story about his future.

They all turned and saw Shadowfox walk up the stairs, wearing her masque. Acererak greeted her warmly: “Hello, Nightshade.”

Nox Rhasgar did not know why Shadowfox was wearing her masque, but it didn’t seem to be driving her crazy.

The stairs had led them up to an open tower room, the walls alternating between solid stone and open slits that looked out upon the nearby city. The floor of this room ran inside these outer walls, leaving the center as an open shaft which dropped to the bottom of the tower far below.

The floor of the uncovered causeway leading to a second tower. Nox was pretty sure the glowing sigils on the crossing indicated some kind of magic trap.

Against the wall behind Acererak was a massive device of glowing orbs, rotating arms, and crystal tubes, almost filling the eastern wall. He could see the remaining pieces of Sky Metal clearly visible with the device’s internal structure. They only needed two more and they would be able to give Obanar enough Sky Metal to make one of the Implements of Argent for each of them.

“All right. You have convinced me you are from the future. But you are still thieves. They still have thieves in the future, right?”

Andrea admitted there were still thieves in the future. “But we are here on an important mission, important even to wizards as powerful as you are in the future. We are trying to save the city of Argent, which in our time is under assault by forces which seek to return the world to the chaos of the Primordials. The Primordials will have no use for powerful wizards in the future they seek to bring about.”

Then she pointed to one of the pieces of Sky Metal in the device behind the wizard and explained to Acererak how he could replace that piece without using any Sky Metal.

“Very impressive,” the wizard admitted, waving arm an arm. At his gesture, the sigils stopped glowing.

Assuming this meant the traps on the causeway were no longer active, Nox walked across the causeway and examined the device more closely. Using similar logic to Andrea’s, she told the wizard how to eliminate the need for the other piece of the Sky Metal.

“That’s all well and good,” the wizard admitted. “Just because you have proved I could give you the Sky Metal, however, hardly proves that I should give you the Sky Metal!”

Shadowfox — or Nightshade, as Acererak kept calling her — seemed to be be on their side in the argument with Acererak. She called him a fool and tried to intimidate him into giving them the Sky Metal.

That did not seem to work, but Nox noticed that he did seem slightly disturbed by the masque she was wearing.

While he and the others tried to gain some Insight into what could move Acererak to give them the metal, Relvain poured on the Diplomacy to convince him that the future would be good for a great and powerful wizard, but only if it was not controlled by the Primordials.

This was enough to convince the wizard to give them the last two pieces of Sky Metal they needed. He had Nox and Andrea help him fix his device so that it could continue to function without the two pieces and then handed them over.

They went down the stairs to where they left the Trihorn Behemoth and Shadowfox, The Assassin was still there, where they left her, and she was still wearing the masque … on her shoulder, not on her face.

Going back to the portal in the foyer, they used the gem Qwor had given them to return to their own time.

Belinda brought Avenglen and Garen Bladerun with her to Fallcrest. They both volunteered to help her pick up the pieces of her life. Maggie showed up as well, always interested in the aftermath of an assassination. But Maggie didn’t seemed as concerned as the others about Belinda’s own feelings. Her father was dead! Roland was missing and so was Madras Kalgore. Everybody was blaming Roland and his underling, but Belinda was sure he hadn’t done it. But she dared not say so because most people still thought she had a crush on Roland. The only one who wasn’t assuming it was him was Jerath … who was the one who wrote the play about her crushing on Roland!

Relvain Blackaxe listened as Obanar described the Implements of Argent he was going to fashion for them: a ring for Nox, a scythe for Shadowfox, a helm for Andrea, an orb for Krasire…

… and armor for the Dragonpinner. She was really looking forward to that. Obanar said he would look through the Archives of Argents for some designs he remembered. He assured Relvain they were dwarven designs, inspired by their God of the Forge.

They told Obanar they would be back soon to use the implements he was making to break the siege of Argent. They did still need to take care of the errand in the Letter from Amyria before they could tackle the seige. Obanar sent them back to Overlook.

Nox took them back to the secret shop where his friend sold Wondrous Items. They picked up some Restful Bedrolls and Andrea looked at some quills she remembered seeing. It turned out they couldn’t do quite what she wanted. Relvain found a smith who didn’t have exactly what she was looking for. She had to settle for another axe.

Then they were off to check out the outpost which was worrying Amyria.

Turned out to be quite close to one of the secret portals which Cachlain told them were being used by the Githyanki. They weren’t being attacked. Yet they were reporting unusual Githyanki activity in the area.

...A Bone Naga...

…How to Read

As soon as Andrea Ravn saw the glowing eyes of the skull on the top shelf of Acererak’s library, she yelled “Charge!” and ran toward it. That might have been why she failed to notice that the pile of bones between two of the bookshelves was undulating in a snakelike motion.

Nox seemed to notice, however, and soon Andrea was caught in the Bone Naga’s aura. The undead creature was able to daze the Warlord with both its rattle and its swaying, hypnotic motions.

Then a Sword Wraith stepped through one of the walls, and she knew they were really in trouble.

“At least they’re all undead,” Andrea told the others, noting the radiant energy she had put on her sword seemed to be working well when she hit them.

But the creatures seemed to be able to keep them all dazed and dictate who she was hitting.

Then they realized the wraith was healing itself. Nox managed to get free of the naga and position himself on the far side of the room and concentrate his fire spells on the wraith — with a little left over for the naga.

“We’re getting our butts kicked,” observed Nox Rhasgar as he tried to get out of the spells of the Bone Naga. The creature’s Death Rattle kept them dazed while Acererak’s Sword Wraith and Flameskull kept hitting them. And even when they got outside its range, the others could still be dazed by the swaying motion of its most powerful attack.

Shade was handicapped by the Death Sway of the Bone Naga more than the others. She had to concentrate all her effort on maintaining her Shadow Form.

The Shadow Form was good at preventing her from getting hurt, but she needed help getting out of the aura of the Death Rattle and the Death Sway.

And she wasn’t getting that help from her teammates. Not that she had helped them much earlier when she forgot to tell them about the Letter from Amyria. She told herself, “It just slipped my mind,” as she remembered how excited she had been to see the laboratory.

She knew that on its tables someone might have fashioned a bone masque much like hers. Or, hidden in this library, might be the answer to all her questions about about the masque and why the Raven Queen gave it to her.

But for now Shade was just frustrated by the naga. Constantly dazed by its rattle and swaying dance, she could do little except pile her shrouds on the creature and concentrate on maintaining her Shadow Form.

Usually, Shade was able to escape from such predicaments by slipping from shadow to shadow. But in this dazed condition she couldn’t manage that without giving up what she thought of as her true form.

Finally, Relvain convinced her to abandon the protection of the Shadow form. Still, even after she slipped away into the shadows, the creature was able to frustrate her. All it had to do was edge toward the shadow where she was hiding and she was dazed again by its Death Sway.

“I’m telling you,” Jerath insisted, “it doesn’t make sense. Roland was a sneaky bastard, and he clearly was taking orders from Tiamat. But he could have killed Markelhay without anybody knowing. He was angling to marry Belinda and take over as Lord Warden one day. Why would he kill her father in a way that made it look like he did it?”

“I wonder if I could use this bookcase as blocking terrain,” thought Relvain Blackaxe as she remembered what she did to the dragon Chillreaver.

Using her shield to trap the naga against the books, she was able to hold it there against all its thrashing efforts to free itself.

“The creature is strong,” she observed. “But it has no training in Athletics. So it cannot use its strength. And it is dextrous. But with no training in Acrobatics, it cannot use its dexterity.”

Relvain was still dazed by the rattling, but all she had to do was hold on and maintain the pressure her shield had on the naga’s neck. The rest were all able to edge out of the influence of the rattles and kill the wraith and then the Flameskull.

The naga never did break the hold. Chillreaver had broken it — but Chillreaver was an Exarch of Tiamat. The two-headed white dragon was able to flee Icehome once Krasire broken its mirrors and destroyed her iceberg.

After they killed the wraith and the skull, Nox and Shadowfox — and even Andrea — were able to pile on enough damage to kill the naga.

They found some old tomes in the library the magic-users insisted would have considerable value if they brought them back to their own time, but Andrea insisted they keep looking.

The Warlord was convinced the bookcases along one wall concealed a hidden door. She seemed to think the blue gem was telling her of a secret room where another piece of Sky Metal might be hidden.

Sure enough, persistent searching found section of bookcase that swung inward and revealed a room filled with statues. And in the middle they saw a piece of the strange metal on a pedestal.

They were nervous about the statues, but they got the Sky Metal out without problem. Then they went back to the stairwell to climb to the next level of Acererak’s manor house.

...Turns Out to Have Clues...

…About his Future.

Obanar had told her she needed to get in touch with the rest of the Order of the Black Feather to make it back to her own time. They had a blue gem which could be used to teleport through time.

She searched several wings and came up empty. No secret doors revealed their secrets. When she moved further from the main entry, a trap in the floor shot lightning bolts at her: No damage, but she sure jumped.

Past the trap, she found a door partially blocked by Andrea’s Trihorn Behemoth. She managed to forced the door open without pushing the creature into the pit beyond.

“At least I know I’m on the right path,” she told herself.

And soon she heard sounds of a fight.

Roland pulled the bloodstained dagger from the Lord Warden’s body. The orders from Tiamat were still in his hand. The next thing he knew he found himself standing atop a fog-capped hill. Similar hills surrounded a jungle valley that stretched before him. He buried the dagger where no one could find it. But he could not bury the orders from the Queen of Treachery: They were no longer in his hand when he found himself in this strange domain.

He first got through the door by teleporting past it. The gargoyles made him nervous, but it turned out they were not alive, just traps. When Andrea broke open the door to rescue him, flames came shooting out of the mouths of the stone statues, but she was able to withstand the flames.

Still, he was surrounded by two Boneclaws before Andrea could get to him. The Warlord was barely able to keep him alive as the Boneclaws attacked with their reach. And the Skeletal Guardians seemed to be able to get their attacks off more often than they should.

Usually on Nox.

They explained their theories on what was triggering the attacks to Relvain when she got there. But then another one appeared and Andrea became convinced they were creating the arcane creatures.

Relvain began beating her shield in a war-like rhythm and they all turned toward her. First one Boneclaw went down and then the other. Then they surrounded the skeletal figures.

“I guess Acererak is already turning to necromancy, judging by the nature of his minions.”

“I get it,” Andrea Ravn told the others. “We’re not creating them when they pop out of nowhere. They must have been created specially for wizards and sorcerers. Whenever Nox casts an arcane spell, they teleport right next to him.”

Once they finished off the skeletons, they searched the room.

“Obviously a workshop,” Andrea observed. The evidence of necromantic experimentation was all around them, especially in the partially dissected troll on one of the tables.

Andrea found plenty of residuum for her rituals.

“I may not have a lot of them, but this will enable me to do them more often.”

The blue gem glowed brighter whenever they moved it toward the southwest — or what they presumed was the southwest from the position of the late afternoon sun coming through the windows.

And, when they took it into the back room, it just pointed them back toward the stairwell.

Then they found a hallway that led back to the stairwell — at a higher level — and to the wizard’s library. Andrea burst in and saw two piles of bones among the books. But it was a skull with glowing eyes that attracted her attention.

...To Protect Two of Acererak's...

…Pieces of Sky Metal.

Krasire made his way to the Necropolis and found the gate open. Inside he found the tomb of Qwor standing wide open as well.

The maze proved fairly easy for him to navigate because he was able to detect the magicks which had lead the others through.

He found them standing in the burial chamber, surrounded by traps. With the help of the others, he was able to see a path through the traps. But Andrea set off one of the traps.

Fortunately they were all able to hold their breath long enough for the acidic gas to dissipate. Then Nox noticed the chamber was laid out in the pattern of Erathis’s Grand Bastion in the capital city of ancient Nerath. This enabled him to figure out the safest path to the other side.

There they found a door which allowed them to enter Qwor’s Inner Sanctum.

Jerath listened to Grigore’s rantings with growing concern. He did not need his patron going off the deep end. “I know it looks suspicious. And I dislike Roland as much as you do. But trying to convince Belinda he’s too old for her and accusing him of murder are two different things. We have to be sure.”

“Why do you disturb my rest?” Qwor’s ghost asked them.

Nox knew that Andrea’s diplomacy would be crucial, so he helped the other Dragonborn explain that they needed to reforge the Implements of Argent for the new challenges that threatened the pivotal city.

“Why should I aid you?” the ghost asked next. “Are you worthy of the Silver Cloak?”

Krasire explained they had defeated one of Tiamat’s Exarchs — a dragon, as it happens — and killed another. Nox and Andrea helped out by explaining the challenges ahead and the immediate danger to Argent.

Finally convinced, Qwor’s ghost said, "I can see how the Implements of Argent can aid you in these dangerous situations. Unfortunately, rare metal that falls from the sky is required to craft the Implements.

“The only set I know of was lost when a group of champions disappeared into the Abyss more than a century ago.”

When Nox asked what they could do, the ghost continued:

“The only option is to go to the last place where the metal was known to be — Bael Turath, approximately 600 years ago. Within my sarcophagus, you shall find a gem. Be careful of the trap, however.”

Krasire told Nox he knew the wizard — Acererak was his name — who built Bael Turath. But he met the necromancer much later than that, after he had turned to evil.

Then Andrea set off the trap in the sarcophagus, trying to get at the gem. Once again their endurance saved them.

“You’re the one who told me Roland and Juliette would convince Belinda Roland was a danger to her!” Grigore Goldforge yelled at Jerath. “Look how that backfired. Now half the women in Sayre think they’re the most romantic couple in all the planes. Even some of the sensible dwarf women in Overlook!”

“One piece of the sky metal is required for each of the Implements of Argent you wish to craft,” the old man told her.

They assembled in the portal on the plaza.

“Remember that the gem shall guide youto where the sky metal is stored,” Obanar explained. “When you are ready use the gem as the focus of your Argent Portal ritual, and you shall return here, to this time.”

Obanar had a warning for them.

“The past is not a place for you to linger, and you shall not be able to range beyond the place where the sky metal waits. Defend yourselves, but do not try to change that which has already occurred.”

After a flash of light from the circle in the plaza, Andrea found herself standing in another circle, apparently located in the entry-hall of a large manor house. One wall was lined with statues. Andrea thought she saw one of them move slightly, as it were observing their presence.

By noting whether the blue gem glowed more or less as they moved in various directions, they found two secret doors. Once again, Andrea’s lockpicking skills were insufficient to open them. “Where is Sam when we need him?” she asked herself.

Krasire was able to get inside the secret rooms — hidden behind the doors — and find two pieces of sky metal. There were traps on the floors but he avoided them and used his new boots to teleport slowly and carefully in and out of the rooms.

A similar exploration of another locked room found only hideous monsters trapped in magical cages. The blue gem was all it took to lure Krasire into another floor trap.

When he stepped on it, several of the statues sprang to “life.” And a lightning trap zapped him good.

“if you can consider Warforged ‘alive’,” she thought.

Andrea herself got trapped behind one of that same trap because she didn’t expect the lightning to go off again. She had to fight the battle without doing much tanking.

“But my healing skills still work,” she said. “As long as the others get close enough for them to reach.”

She was impressed with Krasire’s damage. The Psion was hitting almost as often as Nox.

...To Show them Where Quor...

…Is Buried.

When Andrea Ravn took Nox to Nine Bells, she noticed the district was much cleaner than the last time she was here. Some of the beggars were sweeping the streets and even the temples looked less woebegone.

They it located in a narrow building. At first, it appeared to specialize in common goods such as rope, tents and bedrolls. But it didn’t take long before Nox figured out that the proprietor — a large half-elf named Myra Edgerton — would show them more interesting things if he flirted with her first.

As she watched the dawning awareness in his eyes, the younger Dragonborn turned to her with something akin to fear. She could almost read his thoughts: “I. Don’t. Know. What. To. Do.”

She was really proud of the kid from the swamp, though, as he steeled himself and decided to bluff his way through it.

“He’s not bad at it either,” she thought to herself as Nox started to flirt with Myra. It occurred to her that the difference between pretending to flirt and actual flirting is not all that great. “I guess a flirt is kind of a bluff in any case.”

At the end of a long, narrow hallway, Myra moved a hidden switch and a door swung inward. Beyond, they found a circular room with a large, ornately inscribed teleportation circle set into the stone floor. Around the outer wall stood display cases and box, desks and large cabinets.

A pile of Restful Bedrolls spilled out of the largest of the ornately carved wooden boxes. The pigeonholes in one of the desks seemed to be each occupied by flints. A silver chime, a flag marked with martial runes, a leather pouch embosed with platinum, and a fancy stylus was displayed in one of the cases.

Asking about their wondrous properties and cost, Andrea settled on the flag. “If we don’t find something better I’d really like that I may just pay the 1,000 gold pieces she is asking.”

Although the Platinum Pouch was tempting as well. “If we don’t find a Bag of Holding, I may have to settle for that.”

She told Nox he might be overdoing it with his flirting. “You may be promising more than you’re ready to deliver,” she whispered to the Sorcerer.

Myra muttered something under her breath, and they suddenly found themselves in another room. This one was octagonal. Crystalline windows revealed they were now on a floor above the other buildings in the section of town where Elyas had sent them.

Andrea could see out in all directions. Exquisite pieced of artwork adorned most of the other four walls. But the thing which drew her eyes was a finely crafted cabinet of polished rare wood with crystal shelves. Displayed in this Dazzling Showcase, she saw five more art objects, including a fan and an opal lozenge.

A small skull made of an unidentified metal floated in the middle of room. It followed Myra around the room, occasionally turning towards her as if expecting a question.

Once Nox diplomatically convinced the half-elf he wasn’t planning to spend the night with her, he got her to show him a piece of coal which was tinged with red. He spotted the rune for fire deep inside it and was able to identify it as a Stone of Flame — a Wondrous Item that Relvaine had told him of.

He bought it on the spot, along with a black metal flask.

“I didn’t know he had that much money,” Andrea said as Nox handed over the 18,000 gold pieces Myra asked.

Now Myra took out a small vial of ink and poured it on the floor in the middle of the room. The blackness spread out in a perfect circle, passing beneath their feet and other obstacles as if they were not there.

The floor disappeared and they floated to the dark floor 20 feet below. She showed them nine more Wondrous Items, but they could afford none of them.

“The Alliance will be honored accept your appointment of Druemeth Goldtemple to the Council. We will be glad to see him assume his duties as soon as he finishes his diplomatic mission to Cachlain.”
— Krasire to Inzira,
The Daughter of the Frostwhite Forest

When Nox Rhasgar thought back on his experience flirting with the half-elf, he realized that it wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be. He had smiled at her, laughed at her jokes — even when he wasn’t sure he totally got them — and teased her a little.

In fact, as he thought back on it, he realized that some of the Dragonborn girls he knew back in the swamp might have been under the impression he was flirting them as well. He certainly smiled at them when they smiled at him. He even teased them a lot.

And the way some of them giggled when he laughed at their jokes…maybe he wasn’t getting all those jokes either.

Stepping through the Argent Portal, all memories of playful Dragonborn girls were brushed from his mind. He found himself standing in an ornately beautiful city.

Old, but beautiful.

It stood almost empty, apparently under siege. Defending it was a strange race of lion-like humanoids. One of them came up to them and introduced himself as Rrowthar who took them to an old man named Obanar.

Obanar told them about an undead guardian who haunts the Necropolis in the city. “Seek him out and see if he will tell you how to find the Sky Metal.”

As Rrowthar took them to the Necropolis he handed them a key and told them the Sky Metal was something which could help them make some artifacts which might help them.

The key opened the massive gate in the wall surrounding the Necropolis. Beyond the gate, they found the Necropolis even more silent and still than the near-empty city. A sense of hushed reverence hung in the air.

A cobblestone path wound between crypts and large, elaborate mausoleums. As they searched for some indication of where Guardian Qwor was interred, an undead creature with a longsword appeared from around one of the ancient tombs.

“What business do the living have…” it pointed its sword toward them “…in this land of the dead?”

The blade glowed with dark energy.

“What do you know of the honor of the Champions of Argent?”

Nox listened as Andrea recounted the history of the Dragonborn people — all three of them were Dragonborn — and saw the Wight seemed to be impressed.

So he decided to try to intimidate the creature. That went well as the Wight cowered a bit at his threats.

“Prove you are worthy to wear the Silver Cloak,” it thundered.

Andrea stepped forward again and explained diplomatically all they had done. Nox could see the creature was receptive to such entreaties. So he put aside his plan to prove himself worthy by demonstrating his athletic prowess and continued the diplomatic overtures.

That was all it took. The Wight bowed to him and pointed toward a mausoleum.

“That is where you will find Qwor buried.”

“I always knew that bastard was no good,” raged Grigore Weatherbie Goldforge when he found out Faren Markelhay had been murdered. Apparently Roland and Kalgore disappeared before the killing was discovered. “But not before the killing. Everything Roland was, he owed to the Warden of Fallcrest. And this is how he repays his debts. At least now Belinda will be able to see him for what he really is.”

When the key did not fit in the door, Aleeya realized it would take teamwork to solve the puzzles in the mausoleum.

Sure enough all three of them got through the door by working together.

They found a maze and split up. Without the teamwork, they got lost in the maze and had to use all their endurance to avoid becoming weakened. But pooling their arcane knowledge — a Sorcerer, a Paladin, and a Warlord have a lot of arcana between them — Andrea was able to get them back on track.

Aleeya knew the construction was magickal in nature — the place seemed much bigger on the inside — so he decided the inherent magic might provide clues as to how to navigate their way through the maze. Nox was able to help him some.

He began to the see the pattern in the way the enormous maze was magickally squeezed into the ordinary-sized crypt. “Perhap,…Yes!” He showed the others they through.

He led them into an elaborate burial chamber.

“I’ll bet it’s full of traps,” he warned the others. “These things are always full of traps.”

“You mustn’t come right out and ask her about Wondrous Items,” the Deva warned. “They are in her private collection. Flirt with her first, then she might show you the good stuff.”

“Cachlain has invited me to send an ambassador to his court to facilitate our alliance against Sangwyr. Druemmeth Goldtemple, I ask you to represent me there. Go at once. And make sure the Stone-Skinned King does not double-cross us.”
—Inzira, the Daughter of the Frost-White Forest

“We ride to the east,” Megan Swiftblade told the Freeriders. “Our scouts found tracks near an outpost there. Some evidence indicates Githyanki may be involved.”

Battle-weary, the Freeriders obeyed. No arguing, no shouting, they almost seemed beaten.

But Megan knew better. She herself felt none of the old pride. Her new pride — a kind of dedication to the Alliance — was tempered with purpose.

All the Freeriders felt that purpose, too. She knew. They would follow her into the Elemental Chaos itself.

She just hoped that was not where they were heading.

“Here is the sequence of sigils you can use to perform a portal ritual to reach my court.”
—Cachlain, rewarding the representatives of The Order of the Black Feather for their service freeing him from the clutches of an Exarch of Tiamat

“Why should I be troubled? Have I not done everything I could to restore the Temple of Erathis?”

He could not remember if he had asked the Exarch these questions, but he was sure his work in the Nine Bells district had been noticed by his god. The whole place was in much better shape than when he arrived. The other temples were being restored as well.

But it seemed in his dream that Erathis wanted more from him. The Exarch seemed to think he was needed in Argent.

OK, Spruce Is Really a Monk...

…Not a Ninja…

…but the idea is the same.

Even after Garen Bladerun noticed that blind Odos was more favorably disposed toward the Golden Scales when they told him Maggie and Sam had participated in the killing of General Zithiruun and the destruction of the Githyanki allied with Sarshan, he was still surprised at the reaction of the elderly Githzerai to Grigore’s offer to ferry his people to Sayre. The leader of the Cenobites did not look like he often offered up that much trust to outsiders.

But Garen could tell that even their new pixie friend (as well as Chance and Rinoa) could see Odos was concerned greatly about his people and their future. Glancing at Grigore, he saw in his leader’s eyes that Grigore could tell that Odos was worried: worried that Sayre is only a temporary solution.

“Probably understands the blind guy doesn’t know if there’s anyone he or his people can trust other than themselves, even if he’s beginning to like us,” Garen thought to himself. “Sam seems willing to accept that Odos is a good and just leader. But I wonder if he can tell that his taciturn nature is a reflection of the hardships his race has endured, exacerbated by the recent attacks.”

“Try not to share your thoughts, or your madness,” the Summer Queen asked. “Even your most innocuous comments can bring me pain.” The tiny pixie nodded. Not the first time someone had told him this. Sometimes the rhythm of the Feywilde, which no one else seemed to be able to hear, told him this.

Once Tokk’it had proved Gallia was possessed by a Githyanki spirit and killed her, Maggie had little trouble convincing Odos to tell them about the attack. The Githyanki had attacked without warning, and they sent strike teams to the personal chambers of all the Githzerai leaders, as if they knew exactly where they were staying.

“I hope you’re convinced that Gallia was the one who fed them information on the layout of Akma’ad,” Garen said.

Maggie watched the old man nod as Tokk’it explained that the drawings of the Githzerai leader the Golden Scales had found in the Gith assassin’s cabin on the ship Tokk’it had commandeered were all drawn in Gallia’s distinctive style. “I imagine she told them our names as well,” Odos admitted.

After Chance pressed him further, Odos told them he was only spared because he stepped outside for a walk and heard the team of assassins in my room. “One of them was talking to a strange device.”

Then Grigore took over the questioning.

“I was able to surprise them all. Mr. Lee and I were about to defeat them by ourselves. Otherwise, I might have been assassinated as well. We killed all but one…who got away in the confusion of the main attack.”

“I have need of your assistance,” Tiandra told him, although Spruce knew she would never have invited a pixie to her palace in the middle of the silver trees of Senaliesse if this had not been so. “The Winter Court has taken an interest in the affairs of the mortal realm,” she continued. “And would have an agent there, keeping an eye on those particular affairs…the affairs of the Golden Scales.”

Grigore Goldforge was not surprised when Odos told Garen that attacks of this sort had been happening to Githzerai enclaves all over the mortal realm.

But he pressed for more. And so did Sam. But it wasn’t until threw in a desperate bluff that the old Githzerai offered up the real truth:

“Most of the Githzerai around the material plane of existence have fled to a refuge in Sayre, a nearby city. I want to take my people there now.” This left Grigore pleased that he had already offered to take them there in the ship Tokk’it had stolen.

Grigore had asked Tokk’t to help, but he knew the young Githzerai really wanted to stay with the Golden Scales. A taste of adventure and the kid was hooked.

“Before you ask, I will tell you what manner of creatures the Golden Scales are: A band of adventurers, currently allied with those seeking to draw the Githzerai into an alliance against ancient enemies,” the queen explained. “Aid them in their endeavors and even the Unseelie agents among them — an elf and a hobgoblin — may come to trust you.”

Showing the piece of stained glass to Rinoa, Sam the Foresworn asked her what it was. She told him it was magic, but others had been able to tell him that.

“Seems to be a communication device of some sort,” the sorceress told him. “But one-way only. I think it can only send messages, not receive them.” Sam was able to confirm this when he talked to the pixie about it. Seems that Spruce was following the assassins between each attack and heard the Gish talking into the device. But he told Sam he never heard it talk back. Nor did he see the assassin listen to it.

Once they had all that put together, everybody got together for one final diplomatic push.

A successful push: Odos told them that he and the other githzerai had planned this meeting at Akma’ad to discuss whether or not to accept an invitation in Sayre to meet with a newly formed coalition of leaders from other regions of the world concerned with the extent of the githyanki invasion.

“Each member of this coalition comes from a homeland ravaged by the githyanki, and they’re all looking for aid and support from their regions,” the old blind Cenobite told them.

Sam could see that Odos is bitter that the “humans” sound divided over political issues when there’s so much at stake. The hobbit noticed that Odos tends to call all non-Githzerai except Githyanki “human” and couldn’t help laughing about what Belinda’s parents would think of that.

“I was against going to the meeting,” Odos said. “But now Sayre is the only choice my people have.”

The Prophesy of the Imp...

…Proves to be Accurate…

…to a degree, at least. No one has seen the hobgoblin eat any brains yet.

With Kath’ik and Wellik dead, Blind Odos knew he must lead the battle. As he hurried through the corridors, a squad of cenobites came rushing towards him. “We must hold out defensively as long as possible. Surely, we will be overwhelmed eventually, but it may come to pass that someone will come to our aid.”

Maxim Shalion decided he liked using his curses. They made even his Eldritch Blasts and Hellish Rebukes a thing to fear. The Golden Scales had decided to climb on top of the fortress and surprise the Githyanki from above, rather than attack them from behind.

They were surprised themselves when another group of the mind-bending pirates from the Astral Plane came down from still higher roofs. The Hands of Gith attacked suddenly and died just as suddenly when their immobilizing telekinetic Cold Hands were overcome by Garen’s Divine Mettle.

Maxim used his blasts and rebukes — fortified by lots of curses — to work his way over to the edge of the roof. From there he could see the edge of the main battle.

And lots of targets.

He knew then what he had been saving the Hunger of Hadar for. Raising the Deathbone Rod of Dark Reward over his head, he conjured a globe of impenetrable darkness filled with fanged, flying shadows. Everything in the zone was blinded and their life forces rended. Then it was simply a matter of maintaining the globe and convinced his allies to force their enemies into the blackness.

Taken aback by the optimism of the usually stoic Odos, the cenobite captain stopped in his tracks. “Have you not heard? Someone has triggered the rockslide we use to defend this place.”

Grigore Goldforge decided he might have to remind Chance to pay closer attention to the battle. Almost as soon as Maxim lowered his globe of fanged shadows, Chance forced two Githyanki off the roof into the very place where Maxim had created the zone.

“Bet Maxim coulda used a heads-up on that,” the ardent thought. “He mighta left the globe up a little longer.” He couldn’t help thinking about how his uncle might have handled that. “Probably woulda managed better co-operation between his men.”

But Grigore was soon too busy to worry too much about better co-ordination. The Golden Scales were dropping all around him. Icy fingers gripped their hearts, immobilizing them and making them easy prey to greater damage from the silver swords the Githyanki wielded. His Skauld’s Aura was soon depleted and he had to muster all the healing he had available.

Even for Maggie, who usually stayed out of the main fray…

“I thought the assassins who killed Kath’ik and Wellik had somehow neutralized the rockslide.” Odos was confused as the captain reported the rumors that someone had landed on the roof of the monastery and was attacking the Githyanki besiegers. “Isn’t that where Gallia was last seen?”

Magdalene decided that climbing to the highest roofs of the monastery was the best way to avoid the clouds of dust sent up by their rockslide. Sure enough, the view was unobstructed up under the overhang.

Not that Maggie could see the entire battlefield, but she was able to see her way clear to the doorway where the Githzerai were being pressed by the attackers.

The attacking Githyanki were trying to force the Cenobites back inside the fortress. Seeing that success in that endeavor would allow the Githyanki the chance to fight from the protection of the doorway, just as the beleaguered Githzerai were doing now, Maggie threw caution to the wind.

Maggie used her Ninja-to Rush to leap into the dust cloud from above, following up with an Assassin’s Strike. Realizing immediately why the Githzerai were being pressed so hard, Maggie found herself surrounded by enemies. Out came the Whirling Kusari-gama, which was able to knock many of her opponents to the ground and force them into the black globe Maxim was still maintaining.

Maggie went down, but Grigore was not about to let the Githzerai be attacked again. First, the ardent healed Magdalene, then started healing the Githzerai themselves, and leaped down into the cauldron of death himself.

Then Maggie saw Grigore do something with his Wormhole Plunge that she had never seen him do before: First, he plunged his target into Maxim’s globe of blackness and shadow, then he stepped into the wormhole himself plunging himself back to the roof, then he sucked a Warrior of Gith into the wormhole and urged Maggie to pin him there. When she did that, Grigore was able to plunge the warrior through the wormhole and into the middle of Maxim’s globe.

“Yes, I believe that was where Gallia was captured by the Githyanki. Now, the Eastern Door has been breached by a Githyanki Passwall ritual,” the captain reported. “But the Western Door still holds. We suspect the attackers from above — probably the same ones who released the landslide — disrupted the other ritual we heard being attempted there. No time to investigate, though. We must hold the Eastern Door.”

“I think I might learn to like this Divine Challenge thing,” Garen Bladerun told himself. Sure, it brought him repeatedly to the brink of death, but wasn’t that were a true dragonborn paladin was at his best?

Almost made him feel like Bahamut himself, willing to sacrifice everything to fight for that which is right.

He had started out the battle Channeling Divinity from Bahamut into a crucial Divine Mettle blast which saved one of his allies from the devastating effects of the Cold Hand immobilization the Warriors of Gith liked to use to maximize the damage they dealt.

With all of his friends dropping like flies around him, Garen was glad he could draw so much attention to himself with his Divine Challenges. He wished he could use those challenges to increase his damage as well, like so many of the heroic paladins of old. Perhaps he could do some retraining before his next fight.

Shouting that Maggie needed him, Grigore disappeared into the clouds of dust. Nothing left to do but lay about with his sword. It felt good to swing the blade two-handed. His new shield at least gave him that luxury…

Almost made him feel like Bahamut himself!

What was he thinking? If he used Bahamut’s voice, demanding surrender in the language of the gods, which of these Githyankis could resist?

“Yield to the power of Bahamut,” he demanded of the two remaining Warriors of Gith. The bloodied one surrendered, but the other tried to run away.

Oh, yeah. Probably shoulda waited until they were both bloodied. Garen made a mental note to make sure his enemies were bloodied before he tried to intimidate them. “Some of ’em just go into a rage when you do it too soon,” he remembered.

Blind Odos rushed toward the Eastern Door shouting, “If a hobgoblin rescues us, I shall be very concerned, indeed.” He kept a second thought to himself: “Especially if he eats brains.”

Finishing off the last of the Githyanki warriors was no problem for Sam the Foresworn. Nor was liberating the gloves worn by the miscreant. But identifying the use to which he could put the gloves was a different story.

For that, he would need to show them to his friend Zumos.

Several other members of the Golden Scales turned up their noses at the gloves, although somebody said they were magic. But Sam knew better than to trust such a judgment. Magic could mean “cursed” as well.

He would wait for Zumos to take a look before he actually put the gloves on.

The wizard from the Order of the Septarchs was searching the bodies himself: A lot of bodies — between the rockslide and the fighting, hundreds of Githyanki had been dispatched.

Three troopships full of Githyanki, from all the evidence Sam had seen.

But Zumos abandoned his search when Sam brought him the gloves. The halfling could tell from the look in his eyes that Zumos had seldom seen such a powerful magic item. Which was saying something for a member of the order.

“You seem to have found a pair of Gloves of Dimensional Grasp,” the wizard told him after a careful examination.

Gloves of Dimensional Grasp! Sam’s heart sang. Many adventurers knew about the party trick such gloves could perform: opening a lock from across a room.

But Sam knew much more he could do with them. Sure, reaching through a dimensional portal could extend his reach, but it could also allow him to reach inside a lock and get to parts which might need to be jiggered just so…

...Does Not Make the Best Combat Footing...

…Although Delis Erinthal Doesn’t Seem to Have Much Trouble with It

Chance was glad the decision was unanimous. Everybody wanted to go over the cliff on the ropes and grappling hooks left by the Githyanki Swashbucklers. No more shouting matches which would force Chance to choose between his loyalty to Grigore and his own better judgment.

Unfortunately his own effort with the ropes did not go well. He fell. “Never was much of an acrobat,” Chance thought to himself as he picked himself up in the middle of the battle as the Githyanki closed in.

Once he was on his feet and ready to trade blows with the enemy, the lightning sorcerer felt a little better. He picked his way through the rubble, got near the Mindslicer chanting a Pass Wall ritual, and turned his body into a spark of pure lightning. This allowed him to zip right through a number of the ritualists — including the chanter — really fast, attacking each as he passed through it.

Maybe a little too fast. None of the Githyanki were hurt by his attack. Drawing deep within his reserves, Chance turned back on the Mindslicer and centered his blast on her. That was all it took to disrupt the ritual: The chanter was hurt enough to lose her concentration on the ritual and several others were blown away entirely.

“Pure pandemonium,” explained Tein. The largest kobold nodded. “The battle for the rocks was pure pandemonium.”

Grigore Goldforge was pleased. Chance stuck to the plan and disrupted the ritual. Faster than Grigore would have believed possible.

And the Githyanki Mindslicer went down soon thereafter, victim of Magdalene’s shuriken. “With any luck,” thought the leader of the Golden Scales, “that Mindslicer was the only one who could perform that ritual.”

But Grigore knew better than to count on luck. Sometimes it felt like the gods themselves were conspiring against him. “I mean,” thought Grigore as he healed his heavily wounded allies, “other than the obvious.”

Tiamat. The obvious. Queen of Treachery.

Looking around to see if any of his allies was in trouble, the ardent noticed that Garen was surrounded. “That’s different,” he thought. The paladin was famous for not using his Divine Challenges to attract enough attention.

Sure enough, once Zumos had killed off a bunch of additional Swashbucklers streaming in to help, the sorceror leaped from a nearby building onto the deck of the crashed Githyanki ship and began attracting a lot of attention himself. Several Warriors of Gith pealed off of Garen and soon Zumos was in serious trouble.

Grigore sighed and began sending some serious healing Zumos’s way.

Takin the Scared replied: “Yeah, I see dat. I always panics. Panics usually means pandemonium. Or pandemonium means panics. I always tries to gets away in the pandemonium.”

Sam the Foresworn had taken over the leadership role: Everyone was following his lead and concentrating their fire on whichever enemy Sam was attacking.

So, when he saw Zumos being surrounded by Warriors of Gith, he shouted, “Over here!” and backstabbed the first of these enemies for all he was worth.

“But the next battle was much better organized.” Takin seemed confused at this. Alen tried to explain: “Everybody seemed to know what they were doing. The ritual was stopped, the caster was killed, and the battle was won. It didn’t actually take as long as the first battle, but it seemed faster.”

Delis Erinthal saw what Sam was doing and started pouring on the fire. She quickly silenced the imps who had been pestering her earlier with jibes about her misses.

“I’ll have to be careful about those demons,” she thought to herself. “Their master seems to have some influence amongst the Winter Court’s less savory allies. I wonder if they could be of use to Talyrin.”

Delis still wondered what the Cyclops seer had been so worried about when she sent Delis on the intelligence mission. Something about a vision. Talyrin was always seeing visions.

And this one scared her.

“No panics?” Takin asked. “How you gets away in pandemonium with no panics?”

Maggie wondered if Grigore would really pay her the 1,000 gold pieces he promised as a reward for the killing the Githyanki Mindslicer. The ardent seemed less miserly than he was before being re-united with his wife and children. Maggie thought he might even have become more willing to accept Jerath as an equal in their business partnership.

When the last Warrior of Gith died, Magdalene was already thinking about what she would do with the money. “More gold for the Raven Queen,” she grinned as she watched Garen again take the lead in searching the bodies of the fallen Githyanki.

She noticed he was particularly pleased with a set of Winged Bracers he found. “They go well with his new shield.” She also saw him picking up a Potion of Vitality. “That ought to be useful the next time he becomes immobilized.”

...Breaks Out...

…and Alen and Tien Are Not Even Involved.

Magdalene watched as Maxim Shalion aimed both ballistae. She suggested they don the uniforms of the dead Githyanki who were strewn about The Conqueror.

Once they were sliding down the ropes which were tied to the ballista bolts, the gig might be up. But the longer it took for the Githyanki defending the special defenses above the besieged fortress, the better their chances of releasing a rockslide on the attacking forces below.

Maggie knew she she could disguise herself well enough to sneak into any Githyanki social gathering, but her compatriots were not so adept at deception. Maggie could even mimic the strange telekinetic leaps her enemies were so adept at as she ran across the ropes, but she held out no such hope for Garen in his heavy plate.

Maxim had targeted the squat towers on either side of the rocks. Tokk’it told them a lever inside each tower could release the web of chains which held the rocks to the slope above the cliff. Released the rocks would tumble down over the cliff and crush the Githyanki below before they could overwhelm the Githezerai inside — Tokk’it’s friends from the monastery as well as some visiting dignitaries.

Tokk’it had been reluctant to talk about the visitors.

Zip lines (a short rope looped around the wrists and hung over the ropes tied to the ballista bolts) might get them across in a hurry, but no Githyanki would mistake a clumsy zip-liner for swashbuckling, telekinetic Githyanki.

Still, it was the best some of her allies could do. And Maggie was determined to keep up the charade as long as possible.

The bolt from the forward ballista flew true and embedded itself deeply in the right-hand tower. The other bolt was not aimed so well and got stuck in the chains which held back the rocks between the towers.

Chance got across well enough, but was barely able to restrain his enthusiasm. He almost cast a give-away spell before Grigore and Maggie were able to convince him to hold off.

Then disaster struck: Just as Maggie had feared, Garen was unable to catch his feet on the lip of the rock where the misfired bolt had become lodged. He was stuck there, feet against the cliff, clutching the zip loop.

Almost as if he were standing straight out from a vertical cliff.

Something a Githyanki Swashbuckler might be able to do, but not a predicament a Githyanki would have any difficulty getting himself out of.

So Garen sprouted his wings and flew to safety.

“Not exactly the way a Githyanki would do it,” thought Maggie. So she switched to her backup plan and began shouting orders at Garen and the others.

“You mercenaries! Be careful when you’re crossing!” the plucky shapeshifter shouted, hoping to convince the Githyanki she was the Githyanki in charge of a bunch of mercs.

Next Rinoa missed her zip. Since she was sliding to the better-lodged bolt, she was at least able to catch herself before she fell off the cliff. Maggie saw one of the Githyanki (apparently convinced by the “mercenary” ruse) offer Rinoa a telekinetic leap.

Which put her in front of the rockslide, right in the midst of the biggest group of Githyanki. (This particular group all had large hands embroidered on the front of their uniforms.)

pandemonium, n. wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos. “I swear it wasn’t me,” Ambassador Tein said during the investigation into what happened.

Chance Runner was convinced the ruse could not be maintained much longer. So he rushed forward when Rinoa performed her telekinetic leap. A large group of the “Hands of Gith” (or whatever they were) rushed over toward Rinoa.

Which put them right in front of Chance…

…at the edge of a cliff….

…So, he blasted them off the edge. “It just seemed like the thing to do,” he said to himself, almost as if he were rehearsing his excuses should Grigore call him on it later. One of the Githyanki (who had no hand on his chest) seemed better prepared than the others for such an eventuality. He hung momentarily in the air where Chance’s sorcery had blasted him, then performed a telekinetic leap past Chance up onto the rockslide itself.

With Delis playing cat-and-mouse with that survivor, Chance joined Grigore, Rinoa and Maxim in taking control of the right-hand tower. As they did this, however, Chance noticed a problem developing at the other. Right off the bat, Maggie had darted through the defenders, getting just inside the door.

But now she seemed stuck — immobilized, if you will — in the doorway. In fact, when Chance moved out toward the edge of the cliff, he could see that Maggie was fighting like a wildcat even though she did not appear to be able to move freely.

Soon Chance learned why: One of the minions with the hand symbol on their clothing reached out with her left hand and made a grasping gesture, her hand pulsing as though it held a beating heart. As she did this (and others were doing the same at the other tower), Chance felt icy fingers grasping at his heart, immobilizing him with fear. In that condition, it was hard not to become vulnerable to the very kind of psychic attacks the Githyanki specialize in.

“That must be what’s holding Maggie in place,” thought Chance. But the lightning sorceror had seen Maggie slip such paltry bonds before. “There must be something more affecting her, preventing her from using all her powers.”

Once the right-hand tower was secured, Chance made his way across in front of the pile of restrained rocks. (Somewhat nervously, he had to admit, knowing that Maxim’s hand was on a lever which could partially release those stones.) His nervousness may have accounted for the fact that he did not notice the grappling hooks being thrown from below until a row Hand-of-Gith reinforcements appeared below him at the edge of the cliff.

Seeing the opportunity, Chance turned himself into a spark of lightning and darted through the crowd around Maggie, leaving shocked and singed Githyanki in his wake. Delis darted in as well and they coordinated their lever-pulling with Maxim via demonic communications devices.

After the rest of the Githyanki were dispatched (first, the new group getting pushed off the edge by the rockslide intended for their fellows below; then with Garen attracting the attention of the survivors while everyone else pounded on them), Chance made his way over to the edge of the cliff to view the devastation below.

pandemonium, n. a place or scene of riotous uproar or utter chaos. “I had nothing to do with it,” Alen swore.

After the dust cleared, Garen Bladerun saw the attacking forces below them had been almost wiped out by the rockfall. Two groups of survivors were still visible: a group whose Passwall Ritual had been temporarily interrupted (the paladin could see they were trying to get re-organized so they could begin their ritual again); and another group who were being driven back by Githzerai Cenobites from inside the monastery.

The grappling hooks and ropes left behind by the force which tried to relieve the Githyanki defenders provided a third alternative: Using them, Garen and his friends could avoid attacking either of those groups. Riotous uproar broke out as the Golden Scales began to debate which of these three alternatives would be taken.

Garen couldn’t help noticing that in the chaos of the discussion he was the only one searching the bodies of the dead Githyanki defenders. When he found a Winged Shield, he told himself, “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than to be pious,” quoting one of his teachers back in the swamp. “This is something I’ve been wanting for some time.”

“Now what I need is a good two-handed sword,” the paladin exulted as he tried to see if he could wield both of his shields simultaneously and still get some benefit from each. The narrow silver shield extended its folded mithril wings, floating as if Garen was wielding it himself.

When he tried to use his Direbeast Shield with the Winged Shield, however, the paladin found the new shield did not give him added protection. The Winged Shield simply mimicked the motions of his Direbeast Shield. So he decided he would have to use the old shield with the wolf’s head on it as a backup.

“At least I can swing my longsword two-handed,” thought Garen as he stowed his pelt-covered shield in his pack. “Until I get a real two-hander.”

pandemonium, n. the abode of all the demons, after Pandaemonium, Milton’s name in Paradise Lost for the capital of hell. “Well, yeah. We both been there,” Tein said, glancing nervously at Alen.

Using the ropes left behind by the Githyanki, they could lower themselves down toward the fortress. This would give them the chance to swing inward under the overhang where they now sat. Perhaps they could land on the roof and convince the Githzerai inside to let them in. There they could help the monks defend their monastery. This seemed the safest alternative. Especially considering how injured Grigore was himself.

Using The Conqueror, their captured Githyanki airship, they could sail down to attack some Githyanki Delis had spied attempting a Passwall Ritual to get through the fortifications. This held out the promise of disrupting the attackers’ best hope of winning the battle. Certainly killing more Githyanki would make their job much easier once they were inside.

Or they could use The Conqueror to sail around to the other side of the fortress, where a large number of Githzerai were holding off the rest of the Githyanki who had not been killed off by the falling rock. This might prove the fastest way to connect up with the monks inside.

At first the ardent tried to convince his teammates that his injured condition was reason enough to take the safest route. (Grigore could easily imagine an imp showing up on his shoulder and telling him, “It’s not so much the safest route, as the most cowardly route.”)

Then he tried to exercise his leadership to demand they take to the ropes.

This only intensified the debate, with some of the Golden Scales challenging his leadership while others rallied to his side (even though they disagreed before).

Finally he succumbed to Sam’s calm persuasion: Disrupting the ritual did seem to offer the best path to total victory.

Once the disagreement was over, the deva they had just met came over to and showed Grigore his ritual book. Grigore immediately recognized the value of some of the rituals to their current situation:

Comrades’ Succor

Raise Dead

“Well, this would have made the decision easier,” the ardent noted. Grigore immediately went to the hold of their airship and gathered the ritual components they found there to help Kerem cast the Comrades’ Succor. Several of his teammates were able to contribute multiple healing surges to the process.

And Grigore no longer had to fear his own demise in the coming battles. No imps appeared on his shoulder.

Thinking She Could End a String of Errors...

…Which Might Besmirch Her Reputation…

…Captain Iquel decided to launch her troopship — The Sacrifice — to intercept the scalawag who had stolen another Githyanki vessel. Unfortunately for the captain, said scalawag (named Tokk’it) had found some allies — known officially as The Golden Scales — and was returning to relieve the beseiged fortress of Akma’ad.

Kerem was still not sure why the Thraxinium had selected him. Perhaps his inherently passive nature made it less likely that he would embroil the leaders of the magocracy in commitments they might find uncomfortable. “Long have we striven to remain detached from the affairs of the mainland,” Bejam himself had explained. “But now we have rumors that some deva not associated with Nefelus is stirring up the Githzerai.”

Tokk’it was determined to ram the other Githyanki ship before it rammed his.

Demanding the ghost sailors go to full sail while the other vessel stuck with battle sails, he was able to get the jump on the Githyanki captain before she had gotten very far from the fortress. Still it was two ships trying to ram each other head on. Tokk’it had to settle for a glancing blow which pinned the other ship to the side of the cliff rather than sending it directly to rocks below.

While the opposing captain stayed on the other ship, she sent her minions across to attack.

Creeping back toward Akma’ad’s main fortification, Kerem was able to confirm what the Wellik the Elder feared the most: Githyanki ships had attacked the tranquil monastery while Kerem was out walking around, taking in the views of the ocean, and meditating on the serenity he found there. If Most Exalted Odos had not suggested that a walk would calm his nerves, Kerem might have been caught up in the attack.

Delis Erinthal was proud of her companions. They were all taking down the Githyanki captain’s minions. Garen had another stone glowing in the soul-capturing device he wore on his head and the opposing captain seemed frustrated that she had not been able to channel power into her Myrmidons before they were cut down.

But now that she was herself bloodied, it seemed that the captain had grown desperate. She drew her arms back and the ropes on her vessel swung back toward the monastery where she had been forced to leave some of her troops behind.

Those troops responded as if they had been prepared for such an eventuality. They used their own telekinetic powers to leap into the air and grab the ropes, enabling them to swing across and assault the forecastle of The Conqueror, the vessel on which Delis had arrived (before she crossed over and bloodied the captain on her own ship).

But now the captain came across to The Conqueror herself. She seemed disappointed again as the Golden Scales cut down half her minions, but she was able to channel energies into the rest of them. But not able to attack Delis’s allies at the same time.

Not that this could stop Delis’s friends from slaughtering those minions as well, They even killed the more powerful Mindslicers the captain had brought.

But the captain proved a tougher nut than Delis expected.

Wellik had confirmed the rumors: A deva was stirring up trouble; at least, she had asked the Githzerai to become involved in the defense of Overlook, one of the few places which had withstood a wide-ranging Githyanki offensive across much of the material plane. As Kerem watched a brave Githzerai scout sneak onto a ship, kill the captain, and escape with the vessel, he began to formulate a plan: While Kerem’s vow of pacifism prevented him from killing anyone aboard one of the other troopships, he could certainly sneak aboard and sabotage one of them.

Magdalene knew a boss when she saw one. And she knew desperation when she saw it. Maggie’s colleagues had been able to thwart the Githyanki captain — which one was it? — during the early part of the battle, but the captain was obviously drawing on some inner resources.

It almost seemed to Magdalene that the Githyanki captain had grown larger — certainly more determined — as she realized the battle was going against her.

For Maggie had known desperation herself: She knew the resources she had learned to summon up as a child when her own monastery was attacked and she had to escape.

Perhaps the captain blamed herself the way Maggie had in those first days of working her way north. Or perhaps she simply feared those who sent her here. Githyanki were famous for blaming their commanders for failure.

And famous for their punishments.

If that was the case, this captain had certainly channeled her fear of that punishment well: Even after mentally channeling strength into her minions, Maggie could see the captain was taking a lot of damage, but standing up well.

The deva who had requested Wellik the Elder to convince the reluctant Githzerai to rally to Overlook as the best place to make a stand against the Githyanki was apparently trying to organize the resistance everywhere. Kerem’s superiors had even hinted that this Amyria had even approached the Thraxinium about ending their isolationism to take a hand. Absurd, of course, given Nefalus’s long-standing withdrawal from the affairs of the world. But they had sent Kerem here, where he now found himself hidden in the hold of a ship called The Sacrifice. Once he snuck aboard the troopship, the Githyanki had suddenly decided to come back aboard and attack the ship which the Githyanki scout had stolen. Apparently that ship was returning to relieve the besieged fortress. Kerem decided he better throw in with whoever was coming to attack the Githyanki who were attacking his hosts. Strange the predicaments a pacifist diplomat could get into if he really tried.

Garen Bladerun knew his companions would need all the healing he could provide before the day was over. And he knew he had already depleted his ability to Lay On Hands.

Which meant his Helm of Seven Deaths was more important than ever: Each minion he killed now would be more healing later, when they needed it.

Each time he dealt a death blow — hard for a paladin to do, Garen had to admit — another of the dull gems in his helmet would begin to glow with a greenish light as the soul of the dead was sucked inside.

As long as he used the power of the ensouled gems to heal his companions — or to kill Bahamat’s enemies — Garen was confident the platinum dragon-god would approve. But if he were to begin using the headgear to deny those souls a final peace, he might lose his powers to the wrath of Bahamat…or even to the wrath of the Raven Queen.

Who seemed to be working with the Father of All Dragons…

…in spite of their longstanding differences.

When the captain of the Githyanki finally went down, Garen’s thoughts turned to looting. He saw a pair of Night Goggles Maggie had long been coveting. As she scooped them up, Garen began to think of the Diamond Cincture they had found for Chance.

And what he himself had been praying for: A Winged Shield.

“What I really need,” thought Garen, “is a two-handed sword to go with that shield.”

And immediately set to praying. Maxim was trying to use the discarded short swords of the Githyanki, but Garen could see that he was having trouble mastering the tricky blades.

Garen added a prayer to Bahamat that the hobgoblin would stick to wands and daggers.

So THAT'S what a non-minion dragon looks like

A Blind Man with a Demon on his Shoulder

Grigore Goldforge was the first to see the next dragon. It was bigger than the first three and Grigore could tell that the rubies in this dragon’s harness were not glass.

“Worth a pretty penny,” the ardent thought to himself as he climbed down to his companions. Still bruised from his last encounter with a yardarm, Grigore used the rigging this time.

He told the rest of his band this dragon looked to be more formidable than the three they just got done fighting. And he expected its rider was a champion as well.

They had developed some tactics in the last battle — slowing the dragons to prevent their devastating charges — so Grigore saw no need to discuss the tactical lessons of the previous encounter.

Although he might regret that decision before this battle was over…

Most Exalted Odos was not happy. He had witnessed nothing but chaos since he had left the House of Reprisal, back in the Elemental Chaos. Ironic: He spent his life building an island of serenity from which to strike against chaos there at its heart; yet it was here on the material plane, where things were supposed to be so ordered that he was attacked by assassins when he returned to his rooms. And not just Odos: Kath’ik and Wellik the Elder had been attacked as well. “Attacked and assassinated,” he thought. “And now this. Demons. Trying to convince me to kill my defenders.”

Throughout the battle, Rinoa noticed that she seemed to have the most control over the damage being taken by the dragon and its rider. She could always reach them both with her Dragonfrost, although the dragon or its rider could always protect each other from that damage.

But she still had bursts and splashes from the spells she set up with her Dragonfrosts. That could often do damage to the dragon, even when its rider was trying to protect it.

In fact, it was the splash from her acid claws that provoked the dragon into his rage. Fortunately only Maggie was in the blast of fire that heralded that transformation. And she was able to dodge out of the way.

Rinoa noticed that, while the dragon took the damage at first, after a while the rider was blocking it to protect the dragon. The rider seemed well rested at first. Maybe that was why he was protecting the dragon. And the dragon was restrained in the early part of the battle, using single bite attacks (which once allowed its rider one of those quadruple-jump triple attacks Dragonlancers of the Astral Sea are so famous for).

But, once Zumos and Rinoa herself were able to enrage the dragon, who declared his name to be Xirakis, the dragon seemed to grow in stature as whatever was restraining him before was shattered by his rage.

The abbot of the monastery was no longer shocked at the sight of blind Odos striding through the halls toward him with a confidence that gave the impression he could see the walls. When the Most Exalted Leader of the House of Reprisal demanded to know what had become of Gallia, The abbot had to admit the last any of his people had seen her, Gallia was on the roof of the fortress which served as his monks’ home. “She was surrounded by Githyanki. No one believes she has survived, unless she was somehow taken prisoner,” he told Odos.

Maxim Shalion already had a dragon’s skull to show his kobold minions (or “slaves,” as he preferred to call them). So he didn’t need another fight with another (bigger) dragon to impress them with.

A single dragon and a single rider made one thing easier for Maxim, however: Picking who to curse. Soon both lancer and dragon were flying around with a hobgoblin’s curse on them. Sure, Maxim could not use both curses in a single attack, but that did not seem to matter: The dragon and its rider seemed to be able to absorb damage for each other anyway.

Only Rinoa with her splash damage seemed to be able to hurt them when they didn’t want to be hurt. Maxim’s Killing Flames gave him a free attack when the dragon became bloodied, and the dragon seemed quite surprised to find that Zumos was not the only one who could overcome its resistance to fire damage.

Most of Maxim’s most powerful spells seemed inappropriate to fighting and dragonlancer and his mount, so Maxim saved them for a later fight (it looked like this was going to turn into the kind of day only the Great Gark could truly love: fight after fight after fight). Even his Command Insanity spell was overcome by the the dragon’s superior will.

The immense will of both Githyanki and Dragonkind became apparent as the battle drew on. Maxim noticed that the best way to do damage to whichever opponent seemed to be being protected by the other was Grigore’s Unhinging Strike (which allowed him to force the dragon to attack its rider or vice versa, providing he could overcome those towering wills).

Grigore seemed to be using most of his mental augments to superpower his Confusing Strikes. This attack not only left both lancer and dragon dazed, but also made it harder for the targets to hit back. And they were doing a lot of hitting back.

Especially against Grigore.

Unnerved that the chaos at Akma’ad had taken another victim — this time, a young woman named Gallia — the Most Exalted Odos of the House of Reprisal calmed his nerves and reflected that reprisal might be necessary even here on the material plane. “Perhaps it is just as well. Now it seems she has a demonic conspiracy working against her, too.”

When Grigore went down, Garen Bladerun remembered what happened in the previous battle, when it was the paladin who crumpled under dragon attacks. Grigore had used his From the Brink power to bring Garen back to his feet.

This time Garen could do the honors. His Lay on Hands power was just what Grigore needed. The ardent’s inner resources had dwindled to the point where ordinary healing could no longer help him.

Lay on Hands, however, is no ordinary healing power. As Garen placed his hands on Grigore’s scorched shoulders, he could feel his own inner resources flowing into Grigore’s haggard body. As the eyes flickered open, the body no longer seemed quite so haggard.

“Have no fear, there’s plenty more where that came from,” he assured the ardent and returned to the battle.

“Demons?” In the middle of a battle with Githyanki, the abbot hardly expected his distinguished guests to bring up demonic conspiracies. Especially against Gallia. “What do you mean? Demons!”

Pouring on the damage in the hardest part of the battle (after the dragon became enraged, but before the Dragonlancer became exhausted), Delis Erinthal reflected back on the early part of the fight when she had missed a few shots.

But now that she was in her Skirmishing Stance, she was evading most of the damage and hitting her quarry on a regular basis. "Dragons make for the most challenging hunt she thought to herself.

Sure, she had seen the spectacular damage Magdalene had been able to do when she fought from the rigging, but Twin Strike was working well and Delis was really pouring on the damage.

“Yes, demons,” explained the ambassador. “I just had a demon appear on my shoulder. Urging me to kill that young woman you have here at the monastery. I believe her name is Gallia. That is what the demon said, anyway. Gallia. That is her name is it not? The demon told me to kill her. Something about feeding her brain to a hobgoblin.”

Maggie got the chance to do a lot of damage early in the fight, so she took it.

But then she made a slight miscalculation: Assuming that slowing the dragon would not be important, she decided to save her purple poison for a later fight and used up her green and red elixirs.

Sure, the Greenblood Oil did extra damage, but its anti-healing powers were more suited to a troll than a dragon. “Oh, well, don’t expect to be fighting any trolls today anyway,” thought Magdalene to herself as she danced along the rigging and tossed her shuriken. She still had the Bloodroot Poison. And she noticed that a dazed dragon cannot charge.

It was much later in the battle that she realized the dragon’s charges were enabling its best attacks: A successful bite-claw-claw attacks at the end of a charge gave the beast enough adrenaline to power a free breath attack.

On top of that, when the charges ended in a single bite, they seemed to enable a special attack from the rider: At first it was those annoying triple attacks the Githyanki seemed to favor, but later it became a new one that combined a Psychic Lance attack with a Silver Bastard Sword attack.

Once she realized these attacks could be thwarted by slowing the dragon and preventing it from charging, Maggie sighed to herself, “Better late than never,” and applied the purple Carrion Crawler Brain Juice she had prepared just that morning to her shuriken. “That ought to last for the rest of the battle.”

When the lancer became exhausted she decided to take the fight to him. Running out along the yardarm, Maggie executed an acrobatic (and gallant) leap onto the dragon-rider’s back. It all would have been more spectacular had the lancer not avoided her grapple.

But she got her revenge when the rider tried to prevent her from harming his dragon, he brought himself close enough to death that a little twist of the blade was all it took to kill him.

When he asked Ambassador Odos how he knew the creature who delivered the message was a demon, the abbot thought the old blind man was going to explode in anger. Instead, the Most Exalted Odos answered in measured tones, “Because I smelled the brimstone. Because he sounded like a demon. Because he told me he was a demon. Because he appeared on my shoulder and told me to kill a young woman. Because he thought feeding her brain to a hobgoblin was a good idea. No, that’s not what he said. He said I should feed her brain to a demon who belonged to a hobgoblin. I suggest an extra guard to protect her should you happen to rescue the girl.”

Zumos was kind of proud that he had struck the killing blow against Xirakis. The pact dragon did not seem to appreciate the irony of being burned to death by a Cinderfall spell. But Zumos was willing to savor it.

Especially after his friend, Grigore, had almost died in the fight.

But the ardent/investor had been brought back from the brink of death with Garen’s Lay On Hands. And now Grigore was urging the big paladin to use it again (on Grigore, of course) to prepare for the fight ahead.

For everyone in the Golden Scales (even Magdalene was calling the party that now) was aware that there was a fortress under siege ahead of them. More fights were ahead of them, and Grigore was still their best healer.

In fact, he was healing everyone else now that the battle was over. But Grigore’s own reserves were stretched to the limit. While Garen could not offer much healing help in the battles to come, Zumos hoped using that healing now would pay off in the long run by keeping Grigore on his feet through the rest of the day.

Right now, however, Grigore was concentrating on prying the rubies from the dragon’s harness: 14 rubies, and Grigore was telling them he appraised their value at about 500 gold pieces each.

Somewhere ahead of them were cities where that money could be spent. And everybody in the Golden Scales had some ideas about what they wanted to spend it on. Zumos was thinking about a backup staff. Or even a wand. And he could always use some scrolls and potions. He even seemed to be finally understanding the lessons he had in the south on how to do ritual magic. He could use a place to buy more rituals for his ritual book.

And more ritual components as well, although Chance Runner had found a small supply of those in the hold.

The fortress ahead was little more than a monastery. Probably not a great place to spend hard-earn money. But Zumos had heard of a city named Sayre. Somewhere beyond the monastery at Akma’ad.

Maybe it would even have a link to the cities of the south, where the Septarchs exerted their influence. But the Septarchs had never mentioned Sayre when they sent Zumos north to find the lost towers.

Right now Delis and Grigore were arguing about who should go up to the crow’s nest. Well, maybe Zumos was seeing conflict where there was only honest disagreement aimed at finding the best solution. Eventually, the two decided they could do a better job if both of them climbed to the top of the mast. And Delis started climbing.

But Zumos was amused to see Grigore get distracted from his own climb. Maxim had come up with an idea: He would send a small ambassador imp ahead to let the defenders know that help was on the way.

Grigore liked this idea, but apparently wanted more control of the message. Zumos found a lot of their messages amusing and contributed a wide variety of catcalls and derision. But mostly he just laughed at the things the hobgoblin thought would be a good idea to communicate.

They talked to Tokk’it, and he suggested sending the message to a leader there: someone he called Odos.

Tokk’it offered another suggestion: The defenders should be told they had to kill a young woman named Gallia.

The Githzerai scout was convinced Gallia was a spy who was working with the Gith assassin who had been sent to kill Odos and two other leaders. Tokk’it told them an important meeting had been taking place at the monastery when the attack came. He was convinced that the reason the attack came at the worst possible time was the presence of a spy who had told the Githyanki that the leaders were there.

Tokk’it admitted that he did not know the real reason for the meeting, but he had some guesses: Tokk’it was even guessing that it was very important, whichever guess was right.

So they agreed the message to kill Gallia should be sent, along with the rest. Maxim added a number of colorful details, which sent Zumos into wild laughter. But he couldn’t help noticed the slightly puzzled look on the ambassador imp’s face as he tried to memorize the mission and the message.

Just then a cry came from the crow’s nest. Delia had spotted the monastery, cut into the cliff ahead of them. As the fortress of Akma’ad hove into view, those in the Bridge could see two troopships drawn up to monastery — troopship much like the one they sailed.

And one of those ship was being quickly boarded by soldiers. As if the attackers had spotted them and were coming out to meet them.

...Three Dragons...

…at least, thats the way Grigore thinks it works.

As Tokk’it evaded the first of the dragons searching for their craft, Grigore Goldforge saw three more loom on the horizon, blocking their path across the sea towards Akma’ad. The ardent knew that Githzerai would not be able to evade these.

Not without giving up his goal: relieving the siege on the fortress-monastery where Tokk’it makes his home.

Grigore yelled down to Zumos and Maxim, who were manning the ballista at the front of The Conqueror, that the dragons were on their way. But he didn’t wait until he could see whether their amateurish shots would hit.

Grigore was feeling somewhat vulnerable up in the small platform at the top of the ship’s mast. He wanted to get down to the deck, and he wanted to get down fast. But Grigore was a landlubber. He really didn’t know how to use the ship’s rigging to swing or climb down.

So he slid down the mast, ignominiously slamming his butt on the yardarm on the way down.

“He was stabbed in the heart
and he was to blame.
He gives mercenaries
a very bad name.”
—Maxim Shalion

When Zumos looked in the direction Grigore was pointing from the crow’s nest, suddenly he saw movement ahead. Two red shapes flew out of a cloud, changing direction and speeding up as they moved in their direction.

The wizard could make out three red dragons, each with a rider strapped on its back.

He turned to Maxim, aimed the bolt he had just loaded at one of the larger pair of matched dragons, and Maxim fired, but the bolt went tumbling down into the sea below.

“At least it’s water down there, now,” he said. “Not fire.” Then he stopped to ponder whether the water would have an adverse effect on fire-breathing red dragons.

Loading the next bolt, he got a little better aim. This time the ballista hit a smaller dragon which had drawn closer than the big ones. Its rider blocked some of it with a shield, but took damage himself from the gigantic bolt.

Zumos realized that the dragons were now in reach of the regular magic he and Maxim could produce. So he decided to use that instead of a clumsy siege weapon. He could not control the ballista as well as he could control his magicks.

“Concentrate fire on the wounded one,” shouted Grigore. But Zumos was already doing just that, unleashing some of his most powerful spells on the wounded dragon. That dragon proved to be the smallest of the three and went down pretty quickly, taking its lancer to his death in the sea below.

But not before it had set fire to the sails.

“Did you… Did you just rhyme-slam me?” Grigore Goldforge asked.

Sam the Foresworn could not help but notice that his wizard friend was enjoying the surprise on red dragon faces a little too much.

Sure, the beasts were not used to fire as hot as hot as Zumos could produce. But using your best spells before the sun was over the yardarm…well that just didn’t seem wise. As much as the wizard might enjoy surprising the dragons with fires more potent than they could imagine…well, sometimes the little hobbit was glad he didn’t rely on powerful magicks he could use up so early in the morning.

Why … it wasn’t even time for second breakfast yet!

The dragons had some kind of teleporting ability which allowed them to stand off, out of melee range, but that was not going to stop Sam. “Just time for a little dagger-throwing practice,” the hobbit thought as he aimed a backstab at the next dragon’s underside. He noticed the dragons and their riders seemed to have some kind of pact worked out: Sometimes they would take damage for each other; sometimes not.

The dragons seemed to be concentrating their charges against Zumos and Maxim (who could not miss, even with magic he did not seem to know that well). That made sense to Sam, since they were dealing out the most damage to both riders and their dragons.

But Grigore was taking the brunt of it. Just bad luck was Sam’s guess. Every time one of the great beasts was able to get off a blast of fire, somehow the ardent was in the blast. They didn’t seem to be targeting him, but their blasts of fire seemed always to find him in some corner, while Maxim and Zumos ducked out of the fire.

Sam didn’t like that one little bit. Hobbits seldom like to see their healers get cooked.

Zumos was encouraging this, to a degree. Now that the dragons were no longer surprised by fire which could burn even their scales, he was using other powers to slow the great beasts. Slowed, they could no longer charge the two cloth-wearers (Zumos and Maxim). But even immobilized, they were still able to teleport in and use their breath weapons. And Grigore was still taking the worst of that.

As a slowed dragon took damage, Sam noticed something new: When the dragon took damage while it was on the deck of The Conqueror, its rider did not try to deflect the damage to himself. When this damage bloodied the dragon, it became enraged. This rage seemed to power the dragon’s breath weapon.

And Grigore found himself scorched again, renewing damage he had just healed.

“I believe that is exactly what he did,” Tokk’it answered.

Maxim Shalion was tired of be targeted by the lancers. Sure, he was doing a lot of damage to them — and their red-dragon mounts — but he wasn’t always able to evade their silver swords.

The hobgoblin decided to head for the bridge, where the oaken planks were protecting Tokk’it as he guided the ship through the battle. Unfortunately, oak wood does little against the fiery breath of a red pact dragon.

(Maxim could tell they were pact dragons by the way they sometimes sheltered their riders by taking damage themselves. No selfish chromatic dragon would ever take injury on behalf of a githyanki unless they shared a pact which bound their rider to take damage for them as well.)

Maxim called dibs on the head of the dragon they killed on the deck of The Conqueror.

As he hid in the cabin where the big ship’s wheel stood, Maxim saw the slowed dragon teleport to the deck outside the cabin. It was the first time he had seen any of them do anything but charge and hover. Now the dragon simply settled on the deck and let go with its breath weapon. The flames came streaming across the deck, blasting through the cabin door and flowing around to where Maxim hid.

The warlock quick decided that hiding in a small, flammable box (which was all the cabin was to a dragon) was not the ideal tactic. He headed back to the open deck where he had a little more dodging room to take advantage of he reflexes to avoid the swirling flames.

Then he unleashed a spell on the cursed dragon before him. Ebon Claws was not necessarily his best spell, relying as it did on charisma he lacked (as most hobgoblins do). At Maxim’s command, clawed hands crafted from shadow wrapped around the last dragon. Not only did this trigger the dragon’s rage (which forced it to waste its breath weapon on the rigging), but it also slowed the dragon (preventing charges as thoroughly as Zumos’s Ice Storm).

“In fact, he even worked in a dig at you for being a mercenary.”

Delis Erinthal had missed her first few shots, but she maintained her discipline: Keep moving and keep shooting. They might take away her elf license for missing her shots, but never for lowering her defenses.

Then, as the dragons began to be forced to come down to deck level, she began to find her range. Her shots started hitting, and the final dragon (and its rider) both died, spinning downward to the sea.

It seemed to Delis that Grigore was letting his greed rule his eyes. He examined the red gems in the tack of the pact dragon for a long time before he realized the rubies were fakes and climbed back to the crow’s nest. Grigore might have a theory that three ships meant only three dragons, but he wasn’t taking chances.

The Raven Cloak they found seemed a perfect fit for Jett, the other warlock they had found atop Djamela’s Tower, so Delis saved it for the Genasi.

The fires in the rigging were pretty quickly extinguished, and Tokk’it got the ghost crew to put up some tattered replacement sails they had found in the hold.

The first thing Grigore spotted from the crow’s nest was land. A shoreline made of steep cliffs rose out of the sea, and Tokk’it steered northward along this coast.

“Keep an eye out for Akma’ad,” Delis heard the Githzerai shout up to Grigore. “It will look like a fortress built into the side of these cliffs.”

But it was another pact dragon that Grigore spotted first, a red pact dragon so large that even Delis could see the pennant flying from its rider’s lance.

“Hmm, a pennant,” thought Delis. “It seems we have found the draconic champion.”

...Another New Warlock...

…Integrate Himself into the Party.

The pile of sacrificial victims which Sarshan had laid out around his teleportation circle began to stir after the arms merchant died. Another warlock was waiting there: Someone Maxim Shalion missed when he was helping Chance Runner from his bonds.

Unconscious during the fight against Sarshan, Jett joined the others in fleeing on The Conqueror — a Githyanki warship stolen from the Githyanki by a Githzerai scout named Tokk’it. The Githzerai explained that he had been directed to Djamela’s Island by Storm Johnson who was mad that some person with the improbable name of Blackguard’s Bane had sent his giant troop transport to the island where Storm Johnson has a secret base.

It seems Storm Johnson thinks a giant warship might give his location away to the slavers of the nearby City of Brass. So Storm brought Tokk’it over to pick up Duilin Silverfang, who was doing a little scouting for the big goliath.

Since Djamela’s Island seems to have been destabilized by Sarshan’s experiments, everybody decided that fleeing on a ghost ship was better than drowning in the Sea of Fire.

Chance Runner wasted no time in starting to bolster the hull of The Conqueror. He noticed it was damaged. Huge scorch marks on the outside of the hull (particularly in area of the stern of the troopship) suggested Tokk’it’s story about fleeing from attacking dragons might be true. Chance searched the holds beneath the crew deck and found a cache of ritual materials. Still standing in the holds, the revenant was able to cast an Enhance Vessel ritual which bolstered the damaged hull and gave the ship added speed and maneuverability which proved useful once Tokk’it was trying to avoid the draconic Repossession Team sent out by the Githyanki to recover their ship.

Ghost ship?

Well, the Githyanki vessel did seem to Jett to be manned by a crew of Githyanki spirits, although the Githzerai scout was giving them orders. Not the sort of thing Tokk’it seemed comfortable with, but Jett wanted to make sure.

Applying his arcane knowledge to the bridge, the warlock found a runic circle on the deck and a ship’s wheel standing before it. He ignored the dead body of a Githyanki lying in a heap on the side of the bridge.

Probably the previous captain. Tokk’it did say he had stolen the ship from the Githyanki.

Jett’s arcane investigations revealed that the runic circle gave anyone standing inside it the ability to give orders to the ghostly crew. As long as the person standing in the circle had ahold of the ship’s wheel, the spirits would be forced to obey. They might not feel the true loyalty of a living crew, and they might not show much initiative, but they would keep the vessel flying in the direction they were told to fly.

After the bridge was explored and the newest warlock had used his arcane powers to ensure the loyalty of the crew, Grigore Goldforge led The Golden Scales to the captain’s cabin to search it. They found a desk there with a locked drawer (which took Sam no time to open). Inside the locked drawer, they found the orders under which the Githyanki captain had been operating (up until a certain Githzerai scout killed him and stole his ship). Confronting Tokk’it with the note about a spy inside the fortress seemed to disturb the Githzerai a lot, but not as much as three portraits Jett found in the Gish assassin’s cabin.

Since everyone else, including the Githzerai scout, seemed to be dead on their feet, Jett suggested they all get some rest. Earlier they had found the crew quarters where hammocks could be put to good use.

After their rest, Tokk’it took back the wheel and Jett joined his new comrades in searching the ship. First, they searched the captain’s cabin, then the crew deck. but it seemed to Jett they weren’t very systematic about their searches. So he continued looking around that deck after they went back topside.

At the front of the crew deck, he found a well-appointed cabin. He guessed it was intended for the First Mate or some other favored crew. But its most recent occupant did not seem to have left any evidence of a nautical life at all.

Maybe a passenger or somebody.

What Jett found among the passenger’s belonging was three portraits, well drawn and clear. Almost as if they were intended to help somebody identify the three Githzerai pictured in them.

Thinking that his perception would be all it might take to aim the ballista, Grigore took the first crack at it. But it turned out that aiming was more than just looking, and the huge ballista bolt (more a log than an arrow) went flying toward the bridge. So Grigore turned the job of testing the heavy weapons over to Zumos and Maxim Shalion. Zumos said he hit the spot in the Sea of Fire where he was aiming, and Maxim seemed to know even more about the aiming process, but Grigore was still uncertain they could hit a dragon in flight.

When Jett heard Grigore Goldforge questioning Tokk’it about the ship’s manifest, he noticed that the Githzerai scout seemed very upset at the news that a Githyanki assassin was traveling with the attackers.

The others noticed this as well, but Jett decided the assassin (whose name was apparently Brann’ot) might have been the mystery passenger who had been ensconced in the First Mate’s quarters. When the others questioned Tokk’it further and found out there were specialized defenses at the fortress (defenses which had apparently never been triggered in the attack), Jett decided to ask the Githzerai about the three portraits he had found.

Fresh from the success of his first ritual, Chance Runner had to admit that he wasn’t really a ritual caster. But his Master of Storm Dragonmark did seem to give him just the right rituals for the situation at hand. Glancing at the tattered sails suggested either he would have to climb aloft and do some tricky repairs or just try his Summon Winds ritual. With a trunk full of ritual components in the hold, he knew which option he preferred. Filling the sails proved more difficult than he expected (they were damaged by some kind of draconic attack, after all), but Chance eschewed his limited knowledge of nature to cast the ritual with the full power of his arcane storm mastery. His training at the Monastery of the Storm required nothing less.

When Jett showed the three portraits to Tokk’it, he could tell Tokk’it was greatly disturbed.

Tokk’it covered it pretty well by explaining the portraits were of three diplomats. Nobody was supposed to know they were in the fortress. His bosses didn’t share the reasons for their visit with Tokk’it, but he knew that no Githyanki should have known they were present in the facility when the attack started. If a Githyanki assassin had their pictures, somebody had to be leaking information.

Even so, Jett could tell he was holding something back…something about the drawings.

While Jett assured Grigore Goldforge of the crew’s loyalty (as long as someone stood in the arcane circle and had their hand on the ship’s wheel), he did not guarantee their initiative. If they spotted something approaching, Jett could not guarantee they would tell anyone they might not see as Githyanki allies. So, Grigore headed up to the crow’s nest to watch for dragons and the other ships mentioned in the orders. Soon he spotted a lone dragon with a lancer on its back. Guessing it was a scout, he shouted down to Tokk’it avoid its gaze. This seemed to help and Grigore hoped it would reduce the number of dragons he would have to fight in the approach to Akma’ad, but he knew some fighting was inevitable.

Rather than confront the Githzerai scout directly about withholding information, Jett decided to question him more about the possibility that the fortress had been infiltrated by Githyanki. How was that possible? Didn’t all the monks at this fortress know each other? Wasn’t it more of a monastery where everyone was in constant communion with each other than an actual military base?

Such questions seemed to loosen Tokk’it’s tongue a bit. He explained that Githyanki had amazing mental powers, powers by which they could enslave others.

“They have even been known to take over the bodies of their victims,” Tokk’it told Jett, “so their spies look and sound exactly like the friends and family of those they are spying on.”

As the Githzerai said these words, Jett saw a shadow pass over Tokk’it’s face.

As if saying those words caused Tokk’it to realize something that did more than disturb the Githzerai…

Tokk’it’s eyes moved slowly toward the three portraits.

…something that terrified him more than he had ever been terrified before.

Just then, a voice rang out from the Crow’s Nest. “Dragons off the starboard bow!” the voice of Grigore rang out. “Dragons! Prepare for battle!”

...and an Old Hero...

…just keeps on rising.

As Delis Erinthal stepped through the portal onto the top of the tower, she realized that she was not the only one in the Golden Scales who needed a rest. But there was Sarshan standing inside of the sphere of force: They were going to have to stall to get time to heal up a bit before they assaulted the Shadar-Kai arms dealer.

It occurred to Delis that her best bet for stalling him was to try to negotiate a deal: If Sarshan would provide her the intelligence she needs, she would be willing to go and get help for whoever won the upcoming battle — be it Sarshan or be it Delis’s allies.

Sarshan’s maniacal laughter suggested more than mental instability: Delis understood that Sarshan probably couldn’t answer the questions about the Githyanki, couldn’t send her to get help, nor did he have much interest in cutting a deal.

He did seem to have pustules of Blood Chaos bursting out of the scars on his face.

Sarshan then ordered his Githyanki allies to use their telekinetic powers to “leap” Delis up on top of one of the four obsidian battlements which occupied each corner of the tower.

As Delis watched, each of her friends appeared in the teleportation circle, each stalling for time:

Sam was the next one through — he went into stealth mode to try to get closer and find out what Delis and Sarshan were talking about;

Garen came through and tried to intimidate Sarshan;

Grigore pulled out a paper and read it, placing particular emphasis on the phrase “Elyas, Raven, Drake and their companions” — Grigore’s blustery bluff seemed to succeed as Sarshan took great pleasure at the discomfort Grigore seemed to take in not being one of the named targets (which bluff gained some time); and

Zumos was able to sneak around and find out who needed healing.

Tokk’it was glad that The Conqueror could outrun those dragons the Githyanki had sent to chase after him. But he still wasn’t certain about the crew of his stolen vessel. The crew was made up of the ghosts of Githyanki sailors. They couldn’t be happy he had killed their captain, but they didn’t seem unhappy either. And, after the invaders had disembarked at Akma’ad, leaving only the captain and his ghostly crew. Stealing the ship had seemed the logical thing to do.

Sam the Foresworn, unable to find out exactly what Delis was up to, immediately began slicing and dicing Sarshan’s allies. While his allies quickly took out the Githyanki thugs, Sam concentrated on the others. The Mindslicer leaped telekinetically atop a strange pillar, so Sam backstabbed the Githyanki warriors before they could deploy their silver sword attacks to full effect.

As long as he stayed at the helm, it seemed the ghostly sailors would follow Tokk’its orders. But he wasn’t sure they were necessarily putting everything they had into it. Long before he got to Overlook Tokk’it ran into a man using a strange cloak covered with ravens to fly toward Akma’ad. He had flagged down the strange figure to warn him about the attack on his home. Blackguard’s Bane (the fellow in the bird suit) told him that Overlook had been attacked by an entire army led by an exiled githyanki general quite recently.

Grigore Goldforge had to call up a heroic level of healing to keep Garen on his feet. Zumos had taken down Sarshan’s protective sphere as quickly as he could and then concentrated on attacking the Mindslicer atop the nautically themed pillars.

Grigore couldn’t help but notice that Sarshan seemed to envy the Mindslicer’s perch. Sure enough: As soon as the protective sphere was down, Sarshan used a shadow teleport to get up on another of the pillars.

Yet he seemed frustrated somehow. Grigore made sure the others stayed away from that pillar once Sarshan demonstrated his Blood Chaos Flare on Garen. The paladin came close to being turned into a blob of Blood Chaos after getting caught in that attack. (Indeed, Grigore would feel slowing effect of the Blood Chaos transformation himself before the battle would end.)

That frustration stopped when some revenant Sarshan had been preparing for sacrifice was freed and used a Frostbolt to knock Sarshan from his perch. Sure, the sickly Shadar-Kai (who seemed to be turning into a Blood Chaos blob right before their eyes) took damage from the fall, but as he burbled toward them he was able to unleash his best attacks (including the Blood Chaos Flare which almost blobbed Grigore himself.

Blackguard’s Bane told Tokk’it that the dwarves of Overlook were unlikely to commit troops to the rescue of the fortress-monastery where the Githzerai scout lived. A surprise attack by an enormous army which no one had seen coming tends to bring out the conservative instincts in that city on the edge of dangerous wildlands. So Blackguard’s Bane told Tokk’it about another place which might relieve the seige: Storm Johnson had a band of anti-slavery “activists” working out of the Elemental Chaos; maybe they would be able to spare some people to go to Akma’ad.

Maxim Shalion was not sure where he was when he awoke. The revenant tied up beside him was sure he had been swept in some kind of law enforcement sweep of the City of Brass. As Maxim understood it, deserters were somehow involved, although where the army he could not figure out.

Unfortunately, they failed to tie up Alen. Maxim had noticed this about Alen: When you’re a quasit imp who can make yourself invisible, people seldom tie you up.

Consequently, even when the sickly Shadar-Kai standing over them noticed Maxim’s efforts to free himself, he never noticed Alen’s efforts to do the same. The imp’s sharp teeth soon had Maxim free (even before the revenant got himself free).

Since the revenant had been helpful enough to tell Maxim that the Shadar-Kai was planning to sacrifice them as part of the ritual he was desperately trying to cast before the forces attacking him broke through the Sphere of Force which protected him, Maxim decided to send the imp over to bite through the revenant’s ropes as well.

The Sphere of Force fell about the same time the two potential sacrifices were freed, so Maxim decided to join forces with the attackers. He quickly dispatched the two Shadar-Kai warriors who had been shadowporting in and out of the sphere. By then, the sickly Shadar-Kai was being knocked off his pedestal by the revenant and the rest of his minions were dead.

“I like this guy!” shouted the leader of the attacking forces when Maxim got off one of his patented bon mots at Sarshan. (During the time that Maxim was freeing himself he heard the leader refer to the Shadar-Kai by that name.)

But it was clear that whatever sickness caused his scars to burble with orange-purple ooze did not stop Sarshan. It was clear the Shadar-Kai was as formidable an opponent as Maxim had ever faced.

So he sent Alen over on a suicide mission: The quasit possessed Sarshan (who was looking more like a blob of orange-purple lava every minute) and forced him to walk over to the crenelations, climb them and leap off the tower.

Now a fall of 200 feet would kill most Shadar-Kai. And a 200-foot fall into a sea of lava would kill almost anything. Thinking his job was done, Maxim headed for the treasure chest Sarshan had been attempting to escape with.

Tokk’it was disappointed to hear that he would not be able to recruit the heroes who had killed General Zitheruun at Overlook to help him rescue Akma’ad. But he admitted to himself that had been a fantasy (a “fancy” as his girlfriend Gallia would put it). This Storm Johnson fellow might be just the kind to take up his fight. And Tokk’it knew the vessel he flew — a troop transport named The Conqueror — was specifically design to fly between the planes.

Zumos moved across the battlefield methodically. First he set off a Fountain of Flame by the Sphere of Force, taking potshots at it until it came down.

Then he concentrated on the Mindslicer who was attacking him from the top of one of the four pillars which dotted the tower. Eventually he brought her down and it was time to go after Sarshan himself. Some unknown sorcerer was attacking the arms dealer as well. The sorcerer used a Frostbolt favored by Rinoa (Zumos’s favorite sorcerer) to knock Sarshan off his perch.

This turned out to be a mistake (in Zumos’s estimation) because the Shadar-Kai arms merchant proved to be much more dangerous (and much uglier, it seemed to Zumos) up close and personal.

When some warlock Zumos didn’t recognize showed up to possess Sarshan and force him to dive off the tower, Zumos and the sorcerer went over to the edge while everyone else began arguing about the loot.

Sure enough, Sarshan — now little more than a blob of Blood Chaos in the lava sea — began a strange process of climbing up the smooth wall of the obsidian tower. The strange blob would shadowport partway up, swing his sword three times in some bizarre ritual, teleport again, then burrow his way into the side of the tower with some acidic Chaos Nova attack.

Zumos watched as Sarshan kept repeating this unusual method of climbing until he came within range of the sorcerer’s Frostbolt. The sorcerer would knock Sarshan back into the Sea of Fire only to see the Shadar-Kai emerge — each time diminished but more blob-like.

Eventually the sorcerer missed one of his Frostbolt shots, and the Sarshan-blob got within Zumos’s range. But Zumos got a little too fancy with his timing: Trying to surprise Sarshan with the exact timing of his Freezing Burst spell, he created a slick spot on the wall just before Sarshan blobbed onto it. The result left Sarshan surprised, but still clinging to the icy spot on the wall by a single tentacle.

After giving Tokk’it directions to Storm Johnson’s secret hideout in the Sea of Fire, Blackguard’s Bane flew back to Overlook to warn them not to send any more diplomats to Akma’ad. And Tokk’it proceeded to the island near the City of Brass. But Storm Johnson was anything but welcoming. The leader of the rebels did not want giant troop transports docking at his secret base. While he was explaining the urgency to Storm, strange flashes of orange light began emanating from a nearby island.

When Garen Bladerun was slowed by Sarshan’s Blood Chaos Flare, it felt as if his blood had turned into the sludgy goopiness of the Blood Chaos itself.

He was able to resist the further transformation into a blob of Blood Chaos, but it seemed like that was a particularly dangerous attack that the arms merchant had used on him. So he was especially pleased when some warlock with a flair for the one-liners convinced Sarshan to take a dive off the edge.

When the combined efforts of the lava, some revenant-sorcerer, and Zumos were unable to keep Sarshan down, Garen sprouted his wings and flew down to attack Sarshan as he clung to the side of the obsidian tower. Chopping at the tentacles Sarshan seemed to be sprouting from his scars, the paladin dropped the arms merchant back into the lava once more.

Storm Johnson seemed to notice the flashes of light as well. “Come on,” the goliath said. “If we use your ship to pick up my scout, at least it will not be hanging around my base, attracting the attention of the slavers.” With that Storm Johnson climbed aboard and directed Tokk’it to sail toward the other island in the Sea of Fire.

Chance Runner was glad the warlock’s imp had freed him from his bonds. He was sure these folks could have handled the guy who had been about to sacrifice Chance and Maxim (that was what the warlock told him his name was, back when they were both tied up).

Sure, it was the warlock who got the crucial attack on Sarshan, forcing him into the Sea of Fire. But it was Chance who kept him there, knocking him back each time more damaged than the last.

Even when Chance missed a Frostbolt blast, it seemed to him that the others struggled to do the job. Chance was sure that he could have covered it had the dragonborn’s attack not knocked Sarshan back into the lava.

Sure enough, it was Chance who got to finish the blob-like creature off.

Good thing some guy named Storm Johnson came along to rescue them from the top of the tower before it fell into the Sea of Fire.

Running a Gauntlet...

…the Rest of the Heroes survive…

…to face Sarshan himself.

Delis Erinthal was the first to realize the key to this room was not killing its inhabitants: The Spectres and the Lingering Spirits were already dead; even the Flesh Golem was probably made up of dead people. Both had probably survived the Crushing Traps more than once.

Sensing that sticking around in a room (which had its walls trapped and ready to close in) was not a good idea (especially when it was filled with the undead), the ranger sped ahead into the next two areas (setting off their own crushing traps in the process).

And she spotted a door.

That seemed to the agile elf the best solution. She called back to Sam and suggested he get there first. He did and found it untrapped, but locked. It didn’t take him long to pick that lock, however, and Delis was the first one through the door.

If her friends couldn’t make it through, then maybe she could cut a deal with Sarshan. A deal that might get her the answers her mistress seeks.

Chance Runner awakened to what he suspected would be another bad day: A stray cat circled him in the alley; it was black; no way was he going to avoid crossing that path.

Duilin Silverfang had a headstart on the group Grigore had introduced as the Golden Scales. He had been researching this island for about a week before Storm Johnson sent him here to scout it out.

The obsidian tower was clearly the structure described in the histories: The Tower of Djamela.

Djamela was a powerful efreet in the City of Brass who engaged in dangerous research. So dangerous, in fact, that the other rulers of that place of slaves threw her out. Unbeknownst to them, however, she set up on a nearby island in the Sea of Fire. Eventually her search for the Key to Elemental Chaos grew so dangerous they had to mount an assassination team to kill her.

Before they did that, she set up traps and guardians to protect her experiments. Once she was safely dead, many worried about those experiments: Could they be used to rediscover whatever powers she had gained from her research?

But the traps and guardians proved too daunting. No one was willing to risk them to destroy her experiments. So it was decided that the traps and guardians should be left in place, to prevent anyone from recreating her efforts.

No doubt that was what the Golden Scales were facing in this room: The traps and guardians left by Djamela before her assassination. Duilin even guessed that the Lingering Spirits might have been the previous victims of the very traps they now guarded.

When Sam got the door open and the Unselie Agent slipped through it, Duilin saw the Spectres lining up to force him back from the only way out. Then Sam tricked one of them into stepping aside for a moment (boy, did that hobbit have some fancy footwork), Duilin took his chance and raced through the door.

Waking up in an alley is usually a bad omen. When that alley is in the City of Brass, it’s a very bad omen. Chance knew this. He was an expert in bad omens.

Sam the Foresworn saw the wisdom of Delis’s insight immediately. The abilities of the guardians of this gauntlet seemed have many abilities which could knock down or immobilize the heroes.

Getting out was the priority. And Sam was already close to the only door which seemed to offer such an escape.

He headed right over to it, checking it for traps and then trying to open it. Sure enough: It was locked. Good thing that was one of Sam’s specialties. He unlocked the door and opened it so Delis and Duilin could step through.

He made sure the rest of the party knew the door was open.

Then he went through himself, as the spectres had already lined up by the door to push anybody back from the door.

The mercenary did not have a chance to get to his feet before his premonitions of disaster were confirmed: “Get up slave! Your master’s got a beating waiting for you,” the guard yelled as he kicked Chance’s sleepy form.

Still she ended up as the only member of the Band of the Raven to actually kill one of the guardians of the Crushing Rooms.

Not that the Lingering Spirit she killed was actually all that tough. Surely the others could have taken them out, but they were concentrating on escape. The walls of the trapped room (and part of the ceiling) were closing in on them, and the spectres and spirits seemed to have an almost limitless ability to thwart their actions.

Fear is a powerful motivator.

Perhaps it was even the motivator behind Maggie’s efforts to kill one. Because the assassin had a secret way of motivating herself: When she strikes the killing blow on an enemy, she can transfer the momentum of her strike into a rapid dash that leaves her enemies far behind.

So, soon after she arrived in the trapped rooms, Magdalene began to concentrate her attacks on the most wounded of the Lingering Spirits. When the spirit was nearly bloodied, the assassin unleashed a powerful strike which left the spirit unconscious.

That was all it took to give Maggie the momentum to dash past her startled teammates and out the door.

Homeless in the City of Brass, they always assumed you were a slave. It could happen, too. Slavery was the city’s solution to all problems of poverty.

When he got to the third part of the Crushing Room (where the walls were closing in faster than the traps elsewhere), he tried pushing against the walls. He was able to slow their advance some, but it was only a matter of time before the guardians of the gauntlet got there to smother him with attacks.

Sam had left him a small opening at the left side of the door, so he hot-footed it out of the room.

Chance was careful to be polite as he got to his feet and showed the guard his identification papers, proving that he was a mercenary in the armies of Sarshan (before the defeat at Overlook, but he didn’t emphasize that point).

That was the first line of a nursery rhyme his mother used to sing to him when he was young. He thought about it as he considered leaving behind Rinoa and Alexander Winterforged. Was he really “taking good care” of them by leaving them behind?

They knew they had to make a run for it. But, in the end, they would be facing all the guardians of the gauntlet by themselves.

Grigore considered himself the leader of the whole group. So, in the end, he decided to step through the doorway, knowing that both Rinoa AND Alex might die as a result. The other people in the party might need him even more in the coming fight with Sarshan.

Still, it was hardly an easy decision.

“A deserter, hunh?” laughed the guard. “I’ll bet Sarshan’ll pay well for returning a deserter to his ranks.” When one of the other guards pointed out that Sarshan had gone underground after some big defeat, the first guard laughed.

As Garen rumbled past her, it occurred to Rinoa that being the last to get out of this trap might be the hardest trap of all.

As more and more of her allies got through the door, that left fewer heroes for the remaining spirits to concentrate on. While Garen and Alexander were able to use their superior strengths to hold back the crusshing walls and ceilings, this left the Lingering Spirits with little to do but pepper them with attacks.

One of those attacks gave her an unexpected opportunity.

Long ago she had helped a tattoo artist who was being shaken down by a street gang. In gratitude, the artist had rewarded her with a discount on a tattoo depicting broken chains and skeleton keys. He told her the Escape Tattoo could be activated when she was hit with a particularly damaging attack.

When one of the Lingering Spirits wounded her critically with his Spectral Touch, she activated the tattoo allowing her to teleport 15 feet, free of all the spectres and spirits. Then she conjured Ice Stalagmites where three of the spectres blocked her path to the door, sliding them out of her way.

Seizing the opportunity and hoping the cleared path would allow Alexander to follow her, Rinoa sped out the door.

“Sarshan’s always operated underground,” said the first guard, explaining his laughter. “I’ve got a contact. I’ve had a contact since before Overlook. He says he still works for the weapon-seller.”

Ever since he had entered the Crushing Rooms, the dwarf had been plagued by the terrifying wails of the Wailing Spectres. Alex suspected they were banshees of some kind, the pale elves of the Winter Court the older dwarves had tried to scare him with as a child.

When he entered the first section of the gauntlet of crushing traps it seemed as if the wall were already closing in on him. The Terrifying Shrieks of the Bain Sidhe drove him to the walls and left immobilized him with fear. Every time he got up the nerve to fight back, a Spectral Barrage from the Lingering Spirits would force him to the ground.

He saw Rinoa clear a path for him with some kind of icy stalagmites (or was it stalagtites? — Alexander could never remember which was which), but the Sidhe quickly regrouped, forming a line just outside the part of the room where the ceiling was bearing down on him. They drove him back with their wailing shrieks, and the spirits surrounded him.

Fortunately the spirits had been too far away to surround him AND barrage him with illusions. So he was still on his feet.

As the last party member in the room, he knew he had to escape now. The ghosts (as well as the golem) had no one else to attack. Determined to die a hero’s death if he had to die, Alex shifted forward and then made a run for it.

That way only four of the spirits surrounding him would get a chance at him.

One missed, but three others reached out with their Spectral Touch and drained the last of the energy that was keeping him conscious. The ceiling was halted momentarily as it crushed one of the stalagmites, then crushed the last life out of the hero’s body.